


All There Is

by allislaughter



Category: The LEGO Movie (2014)
Genre: Comic, Digital Art, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, M/M, POV Third Person, Present Tense, song: All There Is (Dirt Poor Robins)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:48:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27271444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allislaughter/pseuds/allislaughter
Summary: A weird sound leads Benny to want to investigate the source, and Lucy and Emmet aren't letting him go alone. The bizarre world they end up in has danger, mystery, and perhaps some look into Benny's past...Oh, and Rex is there too. And no one is happy about that.
Relationships: Benny/Rex Dangervest, Emmet Brickowski/Wyldstyle | Lucy
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! Full disclosure for this fic: I started it in 2019, stopped working on it, and am only now posting it. It's not finished and I'm not sure if I'll ever finish it, but I worked hard on the writing, and on the fun surprise (that the fic tags spoil haha) that will be seen in a few chapters once I post those, so I figured I'd share what I have written. I'll post the next chapter in a few days until we get to what I most recently finished, and I'll have an author's note then reminding that I don't at current have anything else. Regardless, I hope you enjoy what I have written! Thank you!

Nightlife in Syspocalypsestar comes with bright laughter and loud clangs... at a lovely 11 PM on a Tuesday when most everyone is trying to sleep instead of trying to party. Various residents cover their heads with their pillows to try and ignore it, more daring ones lean out their windows to shout for the source to quiet down, and in one household, Lucy smacks Emmet with a pillow, waking up the sleeping log with a shout.

“Wha— Where’s the fire?” Emmet asks, sitting up in alarm.

“How can you  _ sleep through that?” _ Lucy moans. “That space nerd’s been doing whatever he’s doing for an hour now.”

Emmet pulls ear plugs out of his ears. “Sorry, repeat that? ...What’s that noise?”

Lucy groans and sits up. “Okay, one, tell me where you keep the spare ear plugs. Two, go tell Benny to save the spaceship building for when it’s actually  _ daylight _ outside. He’s annoying the whole neighborhood.”

“Oh.” Emmet steps out of bed and smooths back out his blanket. “Under the sink in the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

“Thanks,” Lucy yawns, stumbling to the bathroom.

Emmet slips on a pair of shoes and heads out of the house and onto the street, still in his pajamas in the dark of the late evening. He heads a few places down and sees a light in the garage window and lets himself in to find Benny zipping around, laughing and throwing around pieces to make a spaceship. “Ben!” Emmet shouts. “Benny!” He waves, eventually catching Benny’s attention.

“Oh, Emmet!” Benny laughs again and lands on the ground next to his work. “Come to help me build a  _ spaceship?” _

Emmet smiles sheepishly. “Actually, I came to ask if you could, uh.... Be a  _ little _ more quiet...? It’s...” He looks at the clock on Benny’s wall. “11:09 PM.”

“Oh, it’s  _ PM?” _ Benny asks. “I was wondering why it was dark as space outside! Sure, I can quiet down!”

“Thanks, buddy,” Emmet chuckles. “I’ll leave you to it...” He turns around and gets a few paces out the door before he hears the loud clangs of metal pieces again. Metalbeard shouts from down the street, and a few cats, probably including Unikitty, hiss loudly from their hiding places. He groans and turns back around to walk back into the garage. “Hey, Ben, change of plans!”

Benny grins. “You  _ are _ going to help me build?”

_ “Actually...” _ Emmet clasps his hands together as sympathetically as possible. “Could you, uh...  _ not _ build a spaceship right now?”

“What?” Benny whines. “But— But I...” He sighs.  _ “Fine, _ I guess...” He casually knocks his elbow against the spaceship in progress... and it all falls apart with quiet clicks of pieces falling apart.

“Thanks,” Emmet smiles. “You can go back to building when it’s daylight, I promiiiiiiwaitamoment.” Emmet looks at the mess of fallen pieces, eyes widening slowly as Benny merely floats in place in confusion. “Ohhhhh my gOSH! Benny!” He waves his hands at Benny in a frantic panic. “You— You’re—!”

“Dude, you’re weirding me out,” Benny says, squinting at him. “I’m  _ what?” _

“You’re a—” Emmet quiets significantly and whispers. “You’re a  _ Master Breaker?” _

Benny blinks and looks at the spaceship parts and then smiles at Emmet, winking playfully. “Who wants to know...?”

“Duuude...” Emmet breathes out and barely remembers to breathe in again in his shock. “Dude, I had to go through some serious time travel doppelganger weirdness to learn to be a Master Breaker, but you just...? How long have you been a Master Breaker?”

Benny stares. “You  _ do _ know that I knocked apart at least two spaceships I was trying to build when we first met? I’ve been a Master Breaker for a  _ long _ time. It’s not that weird— Did you say time travel doppelganger weirdness?” He grins and giggles. “That’s so ace, man.”

“How are you not panicking about this?” Emmet asks.

“Dude, are you panicking? Seriously?”

“I’m— Nooo, not at all.” Emmet clears his throat and looks away at Benny’s amused eyebrow raise. “Okay, maybe a little. Just— How did  _ you _ learn to be...?”

Benny chuckles, but the laughter dies down after a moment. “Huh... I don’t really remember...” He stares at the ground for a moment in thought and then smiles and shrugs. “Must be one of those things I forgot when my helmet broke way back when. You know, they said I should have died or gotten space madness from the oxygen loss? But that’s just silly—I’m still alive and I don’t have space madness.”

“Wait— Really?” Emmet blinks and stumbles over his words for a moment. “I— You— Gosh. I had no idea... I never really asked about your helmet—or about you, huh?”

“Nope!” Benny laughs. “I don’t blame you, though. You’re so caught up in your own world and making  _ Lucy _ happy that you don’t really think about the rest of your friends, huh? That’s just how you’re built, man, I can’t fault you for that.”

“...Ouch.” Emmet rubs the back of his neck and winces. “Well... I mean, I didn’t always— I used to know everything about everyone I talked to in Bricksburg even if I didn’t know they didn’t know me, but...”

Benny shakes his head, smiling all the same. “Still making it about you. I can respect that...” He frowns at the sound of clanging.  _ “That, _ on the other hand. I can’t respect  _ that. _ It’s been going on for over an hour now.”

“Wait,” Emmet says. “That’s not you?”

“You thought it was me?” Benny asks. He looks up and squints for a moment. His eyes widen as he whispers “Oh no” and zips out the door past Emmet, leaving Emmet to run after him.

“Wait!” Emmet shouts, whipping his head around to see where Benny disappeared to. “Ben? What’s going on?”

“Nothing man!” Benny calls from above him, sounding a bit like it’s  _ not _ nothing. “It’s chill! Stay down there!”

Emmet looks up and sees Benny floating in the air above him with the sky looking very... not like a sky... more like the inside of a basement, like one Emmet may have built before. He blinks and the sky returns to normal. Benny stares off into the distance, hand shading his eyes to help him see.

“What’s that nerd  _ doing?” _

Emmet jumps and whips his head to the side to see Lucy, fully dressed and clearly tired. “Oh, Lucy— I thought you were going back to sleep.”

“Couldn’t fall back asleep,” Lucy groans, stretching her back. “At least you got him to stop clanging things together...”

“That...” Emmet shakes his head. “Wasn’t him.”

Lucy squints. “Then what was...?”

Benny lands in front of them, though his eyes keep darting away to whatever he was looking at in the distance. “Hey, soooo, don’t tell anyone, but I need to... Build a  _ really _ strong spaceship and jet out of here for—” He coughs. “—I don’t know how long—” He finishes coughing. “—so I’ll see you when I get back and—”

“Hold up, Spaceman,” Lucy orders. “Where are you going and  _ why?” _

Benny shakes his head. “Nowhere important! Just a place out in space—ooh, a rhyme—”

_ “Focus,” _ Lucy reminds.

“You probably never heard of it,” Benny says. “It’s just a place called Undar of the Dryar System—”

Emmet shudders. “Oh, no, I’ve— I’ve been there—”

Benny stops short and stares, eyes wide. “You... have? How did you get out?”

“Lucy saved me from me!” Emmet says. He cringes. “I mean— from a future me that got stuck there and went back in time to— it’s a really long story, like a full-length movie’s worth— But it’s okay because he’s gone now, so— But Lucy saved me, so it’s fine!”

Benny turns to Lucy. “How did  _ you _ get out?”

“Uhh, by walking?” Lucy asks. “What are you saying...?”

Benny stares for another awkward length of time and then proceeds to laugh. “No— Haha— No, it can’t be— You two can’t have— You—” Benny quiets down, immensely quiet and still for his normally hyperactive self. He glances from Lucy to Emmet, Emmet to Lucy, and then up at the sky. “When you look up, what do you see?”

“This is dumb,” Lucy mumbles. She looks up. “Stars. So what?”

Emmet nods. “Stars.”

Benny hums. “And... what do the stars look like...?”

“Lights?” Emmet suggests.

“They’re just normal stars,” Lucy says. She squints and then shields her eyes. “Kind of... all evenly spaced apart... like they’re hanging from....”

“A ceiling,” Emmet whispers. “Like we’re in a basement...”

Benny pulls the two of them into a hug. “We’re going on an adventure,” he whispers. “Don’t tell anyone. Emmet, get dressed and meet us back here, ASAP. I gotta rebuild this spaceship.”

“You’re really freaking me out,” Lucy says. “What’s out at Undar of the Dryar system anyway...?”

“Hopefully?” Benny asks, pulling back away from them. “Something that’s been missing for a long,  _ long _ time...”

Lucy turns a serious look onto Emmet. “Go get dressed, Emmet. I’m going to help Spaceman here with his ship.”

“Right,” Emmet nods. “Be back soon.”

By the time Emmet makes it back, Benny and Lucy have converted Benny’s entire house into a spaceship. He climbs in with them and looks around.

“Aw, this brings me back to when I turned  _ my _ house into a spaceship,” Emmet grins. His smile vanishes instantly. “I did  _ not _ do a good job... If it weren’t for my future self, I would have gotten stuck in Undar of the Dryar System like he did, and, well...”

“Time loops,” Benny says, twirling his hand. “Yeah, I got that much. You know, fun fact, time and space are really related to each other? So I can figure out a bit about time travel if I wanted to...” He hits the button to close the airlock and jumps into the pilot seat, letting the others take the other two seats. “So Emmet! If you got stuck in the Dryar System on the original timeline, but on this timeline you didn’t because your double saved you, but since you didn’t get stuck there when Lucy saved you it made your double cease to exist, what does that leave us with?”

“Uhhhh,” Emmet looks to Lucy for help who shakes her head in a panic.

Benny looks back at them and grins. “A  _ paradox.” _ He faces forward and slams his hand on the launch button.

The ship shakes and lifts into the air, out of Syspocalypsestar. As they head towards the stars in the sky, all of them go out at once... And they’re left hovering in empty space with the only light being the blue glow from inside the spaceship.

“So,” Lucy says. “We’re in space. Can we get those answers you promised me while Emmet was gone now?”

Benny spins his chair around. “Gosh, where do I even begin?” He giggles, his hands going to his face in delight. “Oh, I don’t even remember the last time I ran into someone who  _ knew— _ Or if I ever did— I mean, we all know about the Man Upstairs, right?”

“Yep,” Emmet nods.

“And the other, tinier things like the Man Upstairs,” Lucy says.

“Yeah!” Benny grins. “The— The Kids! They’re called Kids— Wow, it’s been so long since I talked about the Kids. No one believed me the last time I did, let me tell you, that’s a huge blow to my ego.”

“What exactly are they?” Lucy asks. “They’re so weird... They’re giant and they don’t seem to hear us...”

“That’s because we’re not real!” Benny giggles. “We’re plastic toys that they play with and tell stories through! All of our friends, the three of us, we’re all imaginary creations!”

“That can’t be right,” Emmet says. “We— We’re real, aren’t we...?”

“Sure, to each other,” Benny continues. “See, the fun thing about being an imaginary creation? Imagination doesn’t end just because the lights go out. So we’re real to each other, and for the most part, we’re only aware of each other and never see the Man Upstairs or the Kids or anyone else like them.” He leans forward. “But want to know a secret?”

Lucy sighs. “I feel like you’ll tell us anyway even if we say no...”

_ “Some _ of us are more real than others,” Benny says.  _ “Some _ of us find a way to move even when we’re in  _ Their _ World and not  _ Our _ World. Some of us can talk and have them  _ hear _ us. Some of us supposedly get  _ space madness _ because we suddenly become self-aware because of what caused the crack in our helmet and so spend the next 30 years sitting on this knowledge while still trying to have a good time since who cares if everything is fake when it’s still your life?”

“I...” Emmet’s eyes widen. “I could move! When I fell out of Lord Business’s office tower and I ended up... somewhere! I made myself move trying to get back to you guys!”

“When I got us to sing during Armamageddon,” Lucy says, sitting straighter. “Are you telling me that that was—”

Benny nods. “Us being real! I mean, I haven’t had to do it since before the thing with the Kragle, but I’ve known for a long, long, long, long, long, long time! Like, 30 years, probably!” He laughs and then frowns, looking serious at the two of them. “I’m  _ old _ compared to you guys.”

“But what are we doing, then?” Lucy asks. “Why are we in a spaceship in the middle of nowhere heading for the Dryar System...?”

Benny stands up and motions for them to follow. They head after him deeper into the ship. “Because, they Dryar System is part of  _ Their _ World, not ours. Because those of us that get stuck in Undar can’t get out on our own, unless they’re like one of us. They just lie there, unaware of everything until they come out. But if they’re one of us, then they’re aware of what’s happening and...” He frowns at Emmet. “It’s supposed to be a really  _ bad _ experience... It can really mess with a person and make them change.”

“Yeah,” Emmet winces. “Sounds right...”

“But you two are the first ones like us I’ve seen since before the Kids showed up again,” Benny continues. “Or maybe these are different Kids, I don’t know...” He stops in front of a wall and pulls down a gun from it, clipping it to his belt. He pulls down two spacesuits, one in orange and blue and one in black with bright blue and pink on it and hands them out. “Put these on. Anyway, that means everyone lost to Undar is stuck there until one of us can pull them out. But it’s risky. We could get stuck too. We could lose our awareness of Their World and start to think the Undar is ours and never be able to move again. We could insert other theory here that’s yet to be proven since no one has gone there for long enough to explore.”

Emmet squints as he and Lucy pull on their respective suits. “Did you just say ‘insert other theory here’...? You don’t even know exactly what could happen there? Then— Then why are we going there?”

“Because of that clanging we heard,” Benny says, nodding. “There’s something in Undar that’s making that sound, and the Man Upstairs was trying to figure out what, but as far as I can tell, he gave up for the night. But whatever it was, it was using Brick Code. I thought it was someone actually in the city, but no... It’s one of us, one of the ones that  _ can _ move in Their World, and it’s trying to get out. I want to investigate, but we have to do it before someone comes back downstairs in the morning and before we get lost there ourselves!” He grins. “Cool, right? It’s a fun space adventure!”

Lucy shakes her head. “Ben, I think your definition of ‘fun’ needs work...”

Benny laughs. “Yep! Are you two ready to go, then?”

“Go?” Emmet frowns. “Aren’t we already going...?”

Benny smirks. He holds up his arm...

...and elbows the wall behind him.

Emmet and Lucy shout as the ship suddenly falls apart. They fall with it as the world turns dark as the void of space...

“Emmet! Lucy! Can you hear me?”

“Ugh...” Emmet blinks his eyes open, somewhere on solid ground but his head dizzy like it’s still in air. “Am I... dead...?”

“I think we both are,” Lucy groans from next to him.

“You’re not dead,” Benny laughs from somewhere near them. “Can you move?”

“Uh...” Emmet tries moving his arms. He pushes himself up to a sitting position and then stands. “Yeah— Yeah, I can.”

“I’m good,” Lucy says. “Benny, where are you? I need to know so I can  _ hit you. _ That was so  _ stupid! _ We could have died!”

“But we didn’t!” Benny giggles from a different place than he was before. “Now, which one of you has a flashlight?”

“You gave one of us a flashlight?” Lucy asks. After a moment’s shuffling, a light turns on. Lucy shines it around, showing the remains of the spaceship cold, hard concrete, Emmet standing next to her, and Benny standing several paces away, already gathering pieces from the ship.

“Oh, that’s much better,” Benny grins, dropping the armful of pieces he has. “It’s so dark out here in Their World. I should be able to make a rover to take us the rest of the way with the pieces here.”

“You’re so weird,” Lucy sighs. She looks around and gathers some pieces, bringing them over to Benny. “Here, you can use these.”

“Thanks!” Benny grins. “Are you still going to—” He winces when she lightly hits his arm. “Okay, okay, I should have warned you before breaking apart the ship, I get it.”

“Why’d you break the ship to start with?” Emmet asks, rolling up a tire. “Couldn’t we have taken that to the Dryar System?”

_ “To _ the Dryar System, yes,” Benny says. “But not to  _ Undar _ of the Dryar System. We have to be on the ground for that, but we uh...” He wiggles his hand a little. “We were a little stuck between Our World and Their World. I broke the ship so we could get to Their World, since that’s where we need to be.” He finishes putting together the rover and turns on the headlights. “Beep beep, climb in! It’s the new and improved Surface Rover, now with seats for three people!”

“Why are we doing this?” Lucy groans. “I wanted to get some  _ sleep.” _

“Yeahhh, Benny,” Emmet winces. “As cool as a space adventure would be, this seems kind of... dangerous and not fun.”

“...Oh.” Benny glances down at the rover and up at the two of them. “I mean... I could build another spaceship with the rest of the parts and you two could take it home if you want...? I’m still going to check out what’s out there...”

“Ohhh, no,” Lucy says. “You’re not going out there and getting yourself killed all on your own.”

“No, it’s okay!” Benny insists, smiling shakily. “I’m used to being alone and at the risk of dying! I was going to come here without you to start with, remember?”

“Benny!” Lucy climbs into the seat next to him. “We’re going with you. Emmet, climb in.”

Emmet hurries into the backseat. “Don’t worry, Benny! You don’t have to do this alone—it’s just... really scary that we’re doing this to start with.”

“Well...” Benny smiles. “Thanks. I hope whatever we find is worth it, so you didn’t come with me for nothing.”

“Look, I just want to know?” Lucy asks. “If we’re in  _ Their _ World right now... What are  _ those _ things?”

“What things?” Benny asks. He blinks when she attaches the flashlight to the back of her seat and shines it at something behind the rover.

“What  _ are _ those?” Emmet gasps. The creatures stand taller than each of the three of them, a shiny black that blends in with the darkness, clawed, sharp-toothed, and hissing... “They look like some sort of... mega construct...”

Benny turns to face the front. “Those are called Xenomorphs. And we are called  _ out of here.” _

He drives off as fast as the rover can. The Xenomorphs snarl and chase after them.

“What are Xenomorphs?!” Emmet shouts. “Why are they chasing us?!”

“They’re from a 1980s movie called Aliens!” Benny shouts back. “You should watch it sometime! It’s really famous!”

“They’re catching up with us!” Lucy yells. “What do we do?!”

Benny grabs his gun and shoves it back at Emmet. “Use this!”

“You want me to SHOOT them?!” Emmet looks down at the gun in fear.

“Don’t worry, it won’t kill them!” Benny veers out of the way of debris and screams as he veers the other way out of the reach of another Xenomorph. “Just aim and pull the trigger! It’s just a percussive pulse gun!”

“I don’t know what that means!” Emmet turns around to where Lucy’s flashlight beam is still shining. He screams and closes his eyes as he pulls the trigger.

_ BOOM! _

A force of sound hits the Xenomorphs chasing them and sends them flying back. Emmet opens his eyes in time to see the Xenomorphs scramble away and he faces the front again. “Oh, that wasn’t bad— Ah, Lucy, take the gun, take the gun!”

Lucy grabs the gun from Emmet and shoots at the Xenomorph rushing up from the front passenger side, and the pulse knocks it back a fair distance as well. “Huh... Benny, this is actually a really cool weapon!”

“I know right?!” Benny laughs. “Is that all of them?!”

Lucy shines the light around and stands in her seat. “NOPE!” She fires the gun above Benny’s head at another alien, pale yellow and scorpion-like, when it jumps from above down at Benny. The alien flies the opposite direction with a screech.

“That’s a facehugger!” Benny says. “Do  _ not _ let it hug your face!”

“I changed my mind!” Emmet cries. “Can we go home now?”

“We can’t now!” Benny points up ahead. “We’re almost there!”

“Wait—!” Lucy turns her flashlight upward. “I thought I heard— Oh no...”

“Is that a  _ dragon?!” _ Emmet gasps. “IS IT ABOUT TO USE A FIREBALL?!”

Lucy fires the gun at the dragon right as the dragon spits out a fireball at them. The percussive blast forces past the fireball and knocks the dragon away, but makes the fireball burst and fall in pieces around them.

Benny and Emmet both scream, while Lucy grabs on tight to her seat with a mantra of “oh heck oh heck oh heck oh heck” as Benny tries to avoid the fire falling around them. One fireball strikes the rear tire, knocking it off the rover and sending them skidding across until another fireball strikes them and causes them to flip and fall out of the rover. The three of them slide with the rover following after them. They make it under a piece of metal while the rover hits the metal and stops, bursting into flames.

The three of them stop in a pile on top of each other, each of them breathing heavily as they try to calm down. Lucy and Emmet get up first while Benny continues to lie on his back.

“You okay?” Lucy asks Emmet.

“I— I’m good,” Emmet says. “I’m not hurt. Benny, what about you...?”

Benny looks at them and groans, getting back to his feet. “I... am  _ so _ sorry about... I was  _ not _ expecting  _ any _ of those things to be here... At least they’re all too big to follow us under here...”

“What about the facehuggers?” Emmet whispers to Lucy.

“Let’s pretend they can’t,” Lucy whispers back. She clears her throat and holds out the gun. “Well. At least we made it, right...?”

“Yeah...” Benny takes the gun back and clips it to his waist again. He frowns and looks around in the firelight. “This is.... Empty as deep space, isn’t it...? Maybe...” He sniffles. “Maybe I did bring you here for nothing... And we have no way to get back and— and we’re going to  _ die _ out here and it’s my fault—”

“Aw, Benny!” Emmet pats his shoulder comfortingly. “It’s okay... I mean, maybe everything you just said is true, but—”

“How is that okay?!”

“There’s a but!” Emmet says. “But— But we’re here together, so if we die, then it’ll be with...” He counts under his breath. “Uhhh, only a couple of our friends at our side with the other... several friends not knowing where we went since we left without telling anyone—”

“Dude!” Benny’s eyes well up with tears. “You’re gonna make me cry!”

Lucy walks up to Benny’s other side and pats his shoulder as well. “What Emmet means is... Even if we die out here, the two of us chose to come here with you since we could have left you to die on your own. And let’s face it, you probably couldn’t drive  _ and _ shoot off those Xeno-whatevers at the same time.”

“But we didn’t even find what we came here for,” Benny sniffles. “I brought you all the way out here and there’s no sign of...

_ Clang _

_ Clang _

_ Clang _

The three of them look around.

“Where’s that coming from?” Emmet asks.

“What?” Benny asks. “It’s too loud! I can’t hear you!”

“Where’s that coming from?!”

“Hare’s fat stunning drum?!”

“Benny!”

Lucy gasps and points. “Over there! Look!”

“No way...” Benny darts forward immediately, and the other two chase after him.

“Benny, wait!” Lucy shouts. “Don’t just run towards the mysterious light at the end of the Dryar Tunnel!”

“I gotta see what this is!” Benny runs and jumps into the light.

Lucy stops short just in front of it.

Emmet trips into her and knocks them both in.


	2. Chapter 2

The three of them fall down a tunnel of bright, colored lights and unfamiliar, familiar sounds like voices that they can’t quite understand. Benny cackles rather madly while Emmet and Lucy both scream and try to grab onto each other. Their hands connect and they hold on tight.

The colored lights change into a stark white, filling their sight as everything becomes deathly silent and even their screams and laughter go unheard...

And they hit the grassy ground in a small pile.

“Ow!” Benny kicks his legs. “Get off!”

“That was the _worst_ ,” Lucy breathes heavily. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know, but get _off.”_

“Are we dead?” Emmet asks. “We have to be dead for real now. Oh my gosh, we are so dead.”

“GET. OFF.”

“Oh, sorry, Ben!” Emmet jumps away and Lucy steps off.

Benny floats back up and adjusts his helmet. “That was more fun than space camp! Now we— Huh...” He looks up at the mountain towering them in the distance and the fortress built into the side of it. “Wow... That’s not space-y at all.”

Lucy shields her eyes against the sunlight. “Definitely _looks_ ominous... Let me guess—” She flinches when they hear clanging ringing from the bells of the fortress. “Yep... That’s where we’re going...”

“Hey, Ben?” Emmet asks. “You said that’s Brick Code, right? What is it even saying?”

“S.O.B.,” Benny says.

Lucy gasps. “Ben!”

“Save Our Bricks,” Benny frowns. “Come on, man, I’m rated for kids.”

“If you say so, potty mouth,” Lucy says. “But, so... If the person we’re here to rescue is up there, how do we get up there? It’s a long climb and nothing around here looks particularly...” She bends down and swipes her hands through the blades of grass. _“Normal.”_

“Yeah, you’re right,” Emmet agrees. “All these... trees, I think? They’re not made of regular bricks...”

“...I think they might be...” Benny lowers his voice. _“Their_ World trees... I think all this stuff is based on _Their_ World...” He shakes his head. “But I think we _might_ have enough jetpack fuel for a one-way trip up there if you want to take the fast way, but I rather we _not_ risk using up all our fuel in case we need it later.”

Emmet gasps and looks at his back. “These are _jetpacks?_ I thought they were oxygen tanks.”

“What?” Benny asks. “No, don’t be silly.” He pauses. “Well, they _could_ be, depending on the narrative, but right now, they’re jetpacks and we don’t need oxygen tanks.”

“That’s weird,” Lucy says. “So... I guess that means we have to climb up the long way...?” She hums and then pats her pockets. “Actually, did you pack me a pair of binoculars or something?”

“Oh, I got one!” Emmet produces a pair of binoculars from his suit pocket and hands them to her. “Lucy, what do you pop-punk eyes see?”

“Don’t call me pop-punk,” Lucy answers. She brings the binoculars to her eyes and looks off into the distance... “Who the heck installs an _escalator_ on the side of a mountain...?”

Benny laughs. “There’s an _escalator?!_ That’s so boss!”

“At least it’ll be easy to get up there now,” Lucy sighs, handing the binoculars back to Emmet. “Let’s get going— We still need to find a way back home after too...”

“One thing at a time,” Benny says. “But... Don’t worry.” He looks back, trying to keep an eye out for any other weird portals. “I’m working on plans to get us back. It just depends on what we find.” He floats forward after Lucy with Emmet trailing behind.

“Wait, Benny?” Emmet asks. “Why do you have a jetpack if you can float?”

Benny looks back at him and flips over to float backwards and smirk at him. “I’m just that cool, man— Oof.”

“Watch it,” Lucy sighs, setting him back right when he bumps into her. “And tell him the real answer. You know he didn’t used to know about all the different worlds before he found the Piece of Resistance.”

“Oh, right,” Benny hums. “It’s because I’m from a space-themed world. Gravity means nothing to me, y’know? There’s still some logic to it and I can turn it on and off at will, but literally being a spaceman is what lets me manipulate space. But the jetpack is for moving around quicker or more dramatically, or for use if I’m in actual space since, y’know... space logic, can’t control gravity in space.”

“Ohhh, dang!” Emmet grins. “So then Unikitty—”

“She gets magic and transformation being from Cloud Cuckoo Land.”

“Batman?”

“He’s a superhero from a version meant for kids, so he literally can’t die.”

“Metalbeard?”

“He’s a pirate, so he can replace his body parts with whatever. That’s why he was able to survive long enough to give himself a robot body—you remember that story, right?”

“Yeah...” He grins. “Lucy, what about you? What do you have?”

Lucy sighs. “We’re from the city, so we don’t get any extra cool traits...”

“That’s not true,” Benny says. “Emmet got bright, sunshiney optimism!”

“Benny, have you ever _been_ to the city?”

“Is that not one of the city traits?”

“No!”

“Then what did Lucy get?” Emmet asks.

“She’s...” Benny looks over her and her glare, and he grins. “Really good at music! That’s why you were using a DJ name before, right? Wyldstyle? I bet you’re good at music.”

Lucy clears her throat. “Let’s not talk about this anymore.”

“She’s _really_ good at singing,” Emmet adds.

“Emmet!”

“Well, you are,” Emmet pouts. “You can’t say you aren’t.”

Lucy sighs. “Yeah, okay, just as long as that’s _all_ we’re saying.”

Benny grins and blinks dumbly. “You lost me.”

“Yep,” Lucy says. “Anyway. Mountain, with an escalator. Big scary fortress—” She cringes at the clanging above them. “And loud, annoying Brick Code. Do we have a plan for going up in there or are we just winging it?”

“Oh, do none of us have a plan?” Benny asks. “Emmet, you’re good at plans, what about you?”

“Oh— Uh—” Emmet grimaces and holds his hands up. “I mean, if you give me some paper and some crayons and, like, a time skip maybe I could figure out something, but I feel really out of my element, more than usual even.”

“Yeah,” Benny frowns. “I mean, I could bluff with the Xenomorphs since they’re from a space movie, but then that dragon showed up and now we’re in Their World or something based on Their World, and I have _no_ idea what we’re dealing with. Not what I was expecting at all.”

Lucy furrows her brow. “Benny, you’re _sure_ that what we’re hearing is Brick Code?”

“Yeah,” Benny nods.

“Like.... _really_ sure?”

“Mm-hmm!”

“But, like, really, really, _really_ sure, I mean.”

“Well, when you make me second guess myself like that...” He pauses and then floats over her and lands on the landing just before the first step of the escalator. “Even if it’s not, we’re already here. Might as well go knock on the big scary doors and see what big, scary monsters we have to face...” He looks up the length of the escalator and the misty fog it rises into. “Huh... Looks like we got time to waste too... Coming?”

Lucy and Emmet look at each other. Emmet shrugs and follows after Benny with Lucy following behind. The three of them ride up the admittedly slow escalator and watch as the ground disappears below them...

“So, uh...” Benny turns around. “Let me know when we get to the top so I don’t trip, but Emmet, I gotta few questions for you too...?”

“Yeah?” Emmet asks.

“You said something about a time travelling alternate version of you that’s a Master Breaker or something?”

Emmet winces. “Yeah, Rex...He called himself Rex Dangervest and saved me from crashing into an asteroid when I had tried taking a spaceship after you guys to the Systar System. He had a really cool spaceship and a whole crew of raptors and was all edgy and serious...” Emmet rocks back and forth. “And he saved me from landing in Undar of the Dryar system and getting stuck for who knows how long... But, he, uh...”

“Was a huge jerk and tricked you into causing Armamageddon?” Lucy offers.

“Yeahhh...” Emmet says. _“That._ That happened. He taught me to Master Break things and, uh... you remember what you saw me do.”

Benny frowns. “I was _wondering_ why you did that. You never actually told any of us, y’know? Why would you believe him that breaking someone else’s things is the way to go?”

“I mean!” Emmet groans. “I thought you and the others were _brainwashed!”_

“We were having fun, dude,” Benny sighs. “I mean, _look,_ I finally have my arm replaced, we didn’t have to worry about having to survive, and things were pretty much like they were on Cloud Cuckooland before _that_ got destroyed...” He shakes his head and chuckles. “But, to be fair, like I said before. You don’t really know a whole lot about us, so I don’t blame you for not knowing how we act when we’re happy versus when we’re brainwashed.”

“Oh, _ouch,_ much?” Lucy squints at Benny. “You having fun throwing shade there, Ben?”

“That wasn’t sincere?” Emmet squeaks. “Benny, are you actually mad at me?”

Benny opens his mouth to answer, but then pauses and blinks and reaches up to hold his head as the three of them ascend into the fog. “I— Uh... No, I’m not mad, but I...” His gaze loses focus as he concentrates on something unknown to the other two.

Emmet looks back at Lucy for help. Lucy looks up at him and shakes her head.

“I don’t know what’s going on with him either,” Lucy says. “He _is_ from the 1980s. Sometimes he gets quiet and eerie like that and you just have to wait for him to snap out of it...” She looks past Emmet at Benny. “I’d say give it... Three... Two... One...”

She mutters a “blast off” right as Benny’s face brightens as he regains focus on Emmet.

“Aw, man, though,” Benny laughs. “I think I saw Rex’s ship for a few seconds before everything went all Armamageddon. It was the one shaped like a giant fist, right? That’s such a weird design for a spaceship, but it’s still a spaceship so I love it. I bet the inside was really boss too. Man, I wonder if this adventure will have as many cool spaceships.”

“You okay, Ben?” Emmet asks.

“What?” Benny blinks. “Yeah, man, I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I— Never mind...” The fog clears, and Emmet looks ahead. “Looks like we’re at the top now. Might want to turn around.”

Benny looks over his shoulder and turns around as suggested and steps onto the top landing and then closer to the towering mountain fortress. “No guards or anything, huh...?” He glances back at the other two and then zips away. “I’m going to knock on the door and see if it activates a trap door or something!”

“What?” Lucy asks. She looks at him floating several inches off the ground. “Oh, right, you do that...”

Benny bangs his claw hand against the door. “Hello? Anyone home? We’re three weary astronauts who have arrived on this planet in peace!” He looks down and gently lands and the wobbles back and forth to test the ground. “Looks stable, you two,” he calls. He looks at the door again and then calls back over. “Also, there’s no answer! Should I break the door down?”

“Try opening it first,” Emmet suggests. “Maybe it’s unlocked!”

Benny grabs the handle and pushes on the door. It swings open and he practically falls in with a soft “oof!” He gets up and holds the door open for the other two. “Looks like the inside is more our speed,” he says, motioning around to the interior made of normal, plastic bricks. “Let’s go see what poor soul is asking for help.”

“Pretty fancy place,” Lucy comments as she looks around at all the ornate, gothic decor. “Does anyone else get serious vampire vibes here, or is that just me?”

“Dude,” Benny frowns, floating after her. “We are _not_ dressed for a vampire genre story and I don’t want to have a wardrobe change if it puts me in anything that isn’t a spacesuit.”

“Just as long as none of us get our blood drained from our necks.”

“Ugh, yeah, that would suck.”

Lucy stops and glares at Benny. Benny smirks and laughs as he slips past her down the hall.

“Can’t _pun_ ch me for that if you can’t catch me!” he cackles.

“Benny!” Lucy shouts, chasing after him. “Don’t run off without us!”

“Wait, guys—!” Emmet flinches when the door slams shut behind him. “Oh, that’s not good...” He looks around frantically at the sound of evil laughter echoing from somewhere around them. “Oh no, oh no— Guys!” He hears the clanging of bells again and looks up instinctively...

...Only to find a portrait of Rex Dangervest smiling down at him from its place framed on the ceiling above.

He screams and runs after the others. “Luucyyyyy! Wait uuuup!”

Meanwhile, Benny continues to laugh as he darts down the hall and away from Lucy. He follows after the sounds he’s heard, making his way to the source. He should be able to get to it soon if he just—

“Gotcha!”

“Oof!” Benny pouts and looks at Lucy. “You didn’t have to tackle me like that.”

“You kept running away!” Lucy argues. “We need to stick together and—” She looks back and around. “Oh no— I lost Emmet—”

“LUUUUCYYYYYY!!!”

“Never mind— OVER HERE, EMMET! NO, NO, YOU JUST PASSED THE HALLWAY, GO BACK! GREAT, NOW TURN LEFT! YOUR OTHER LEFT! YEAH, WE’RE HERE!” She waves and then winces when Emmet rushes up and throws himself on top of her and into the pile on top of Benny.

“Lucy!” Emmet cries. “I heard— I heard evil laughter and then I heard those bells and— And then I looked up and I saw— I saw—”

“Ugh,” Benny groans. “I feel like a broken record, but _get OFF.”_

“Sorry, Benny,” Lucy says. She picks Emmet up and stands up, letting Benny float back up on his own. “Emmet, what did you see?”

Emmet whines. “I saw—!”

The three of them freeze and can only watch as the walls and floors of the hallway shift away in a sea of pixels and leave behind slick gray tile in a dangerously open room. The three of them dive up against each other as bars shoot up around them to cage them in.

A figure claps sarcastically as he steps out of the shadows and into the ominous green lighting of the newly sci-fi aesthetic lair. Rex Dangervest flashes them a charming grin. “Well, well, well. Looks like I’ve caught a pair of—” He looks over at Benny. “A _trio_ of mice?”

“Dude,” Benny looks up and down Rex. “What’s with— Your hands— Your _limbs?_ They’re all... not stiff.”

“Like it?” Rex asks, gesturing up and down himself. “You wouldn’t know, but there’s these _giants_ out there—”

“Actually,” Emmet starts, but Lucy and Benny shush him.

“—and I thought that I might have some fun making myself look a bit more like _them_ for a change...” He smirks. “It looks good on you three too!”

“What?” Lucy asks. She looks down at herself and yelps as she stares in horror at her hands. “What?! These are?”

“This is weird!” Emmet moves his arms at the elbow and bounces on his knees. “Oh this is so _weird!”_

Benny wiggles his hands. “Fingers. _Sweet._ Definitely an upgrade...” He grabs the gun from his waist and aims it at the bars of the cage. “Makes pulling the trigger so much easier—” 

“Oop, can’t have that,” Rex says with a snap of his fingers. The pulse gun pixellates out of Benny’s hand and reforms in Rex’s.

“Hey!” Benny scowls. “Give that back!”

“Nee-ope.” Rex twirls the handle around his finger and then clips the gun to his own belt. “I’ll be sure to have a bit of fun with this.”

“Not cool, man,” Benny growls. “Who even are you?”

He chuckles sinisterly. “Call me... _Rex._ Rex Dangervest.” He laughs and strides up to the group. “Now Emmet, I can understand bringing Lucy, but you brought the _spaceman?_ The crazy, spaceship-obsessed 80s nerd suffering from space madness? That’s so _weird!”_

“A-Actually,” Emmet stammers. “Benny brought _us...”_

Rex stops at that, straightens his back, and looks over Benny. “You brought them.”

Benny shrugs. “Yeah. It was my idea to see what the sound in the Dryar System was. I’m the one who brought them here—”

“You _heard_ me using Brick Code?” Rex reiterates. “You heard me _and_ got these two here.” He smirks. “Not expecting that. Gotta wonder then, why you were able to hear it...?”

“Back off, Rex,” Lucy orders. “We came here to save you, but if this is a trap—”

Rex laughs again. “Of _course_ it’s a trap! What else would it be? You really thought anyone else would be able to send you signals to follow from Dryar? _Who else would it be?”_ He flashes a grin at Benny. “Some space nerd with a broken helmet?”

Benny floats back and shoots a hand to his helmet. “You take that back—”

“Ohhh...” Rex bangs the bars of the cage, causing the three of them to jump. “What’s wrong, Benjamin?” He flutters his eyes mockingly, “Self-conscious about your pwecious helmet being bwoken...?” He scowls. “Well, _tough._ Face it, you old-school guys are weak plastic and easily broken. Really gotta wonder why everyone keeps you around when you’re already falling apart. In more ways than one at that.”

Benny stares. His eyes narrow, a scowl forms, and he shakes.

“Rex, come on,” Emmet utters, edging closer. “Be nice to him. He’s— He’s a lot like us, y’know?”

“He got us this far,” Lucy agrees. “And if you don’t want to be rescued, then he’ll get us out too.”

“This far,” Rex deadpans. “All the way into a trap, you mean. Because you two would still be laughing it up at home if the space nerd hadn’t convinced you to risk death for someone you didn’t even know the identity of?” He shakes his head, clicking his tongue. “Yeah, fat lot of good that did ya, huh?” He glares at Benny. “So, what exactly are _you_ going to do, huh? You put your friends in danger and walked them right where I wanted them. So much for being a cool spa— URK!” He chokes and grabs at Benny’s arm when Benny grabs him by the collar of his vest. “Yo! What do you think you’re doing?!”

_“You_ make me _really angry,”_ Benny growls, and even Emmet and Lucy back away in fear at the danger in his tone. “You don’t know _anything_ about me, man. So you better back off before I break you in half.”

Rex kicks against the bars and out of Benny’s grasp, landing a safe distance away. “As if you could. You’re stuck in there and I’m—”

Benny knocks “shave and a haircut” against a single bar in front of him. The entire cage falls apart around them in “two bits”.

Rex’s eyes widen. “Oh s▒▒▒... How— How did you—?” He bares his teeth and shouts, “You’ve been a Master Breaker this ENTIRE TIME?!”

“You know?!” Benny yells. “If you actually _cared_ about your friends, maybe you would have realized that ages ago!”

Emmet winces. “I mean... Fair... But, Ben, calm down—”

“No!” Benny shouts. “I’m tired of clowning around! I spent _thirty years_ knowing about the fact we’re _tiny plastic toys—_ _Thirty years_ waiting for some chance to be who I’m meant to be instead of some stock character in a child’s imagination—” He sniffles and takes off his helmet to wipe his eyes. “Thirty years wanting to find others like me, only to have it blow up in my face like this? I was here first! I knew about all this before any of you!” He sobs, loud and hard. “This isn’t fair!”

Rex scoffs. “What did I tell you...?” He grabs Benny’s own gun and aims it at the three of them. “Weak and easily broken.”

Lucy grabs Emmet and pulls him out of the way of the shot, but the percussive blast hits Benny and sends him flying back into the opposite wall.

“Benny!” the two of them shout. They run over to help him, but slide to a stop as the tile splits apart, revealing a pit of bright green acid.

“Like my acid pit?” Rex asks. “It comes standard with the evil lair! So does this—” He snaps his fingers again, and glass walls shoot up around Emmet and Lucy. “More than one way to trap a hero! I’ve been _planning_ for this!”

Lucy bangs against the glass. “Emmet, you can break through this, right? You said you’re a Master Breaker too!”

“Uh— Yeah, I can totally!” Emmet punches the glass and immediate recoils. “Ow, ow, ow, nope, can’t, ow—!”

Rex laughs. “Really, I would have used the unbreakable glass from the start, but I wanted to be more dramatic.” He walks across the acid pit, on an invisible bridge, and over to Benny. “And now to deal with you...”

“Benny!” Lucy shouts. “Get up!”

Benny looks up and then drops his head back to the ground. “What’s the point?” he asks. “We’re not even real. None of this matters.”

“Ha!” Rex shakes his head, grinning. _“Finally_ , someone who _gets it._ Real shame I have to kill you...” He aims the gun at Benny again...

...And then lowers it.

“Unless...” he says.

Benny looks up at him. “Unless...?”

Rex clips the gun to his belt and grabs Benny’s helmet and sticks it back over Benny’s head. He then grabs Benny and picks him up, carrying him over his shoulder. “You and I are going to have a little _chat,_ spaceman. Hope you like adult drinks because we’re living hard and edgy here.”

“Hey!” Lucy shouts. “Let him go!”

“I thought this was supposed to be rated for kids!” Emmet calls after Rex.

“We’re riding a hard T rating this time, jerks!” Rex cackles. “Be back later!”

The two of them disappear behind a door, leaving Emmet and Lucy in their glass box.

“This isn’t good,” Emmet says. “Rex is so _mean!_ I’ve never seen Benny so angry like that!”

Lucy winces. “I have...”

Emmet looks up at her with wide eyes. “You _have?”_

“It was... _really_ early on...” Lucy rubs the back of her neck before stopping to look at her hand to wonder why that felt so natural. “How the heck was Rex able to _do_ this...?”

“I don’t know,” Emmet says. “But what was that about Benny being angry like that before?”

“Oh, well...” Lucy sighs. “It was when he was talking to Vitruvius about the Man Upstairs. Vitruvius knew about him, and Benny was really interested—I guess we know why now—and so was asking a bunch of questions. But it got into what sounded like really...” She twirls a finger next to her head. “You know. _Crazy_ questions, if you were asking them to anyone who hasn’t actually seen those giants or Their World. So the other Master Builders started making fun of him and insulting him, and he got _real_ mad. But he took it out on his own things, just breaking his own spaceships until he calmed down and everyone seemed to forget he ever asked. And then after several years it was as if the only weird thing there ever was about him was his hyperactivity and love of spaceships.”

“Huh...” Emmet furrows his brow. “I— I guess that makes sense, huh...? In a weird way I can’t describe... But Rex made him so mad now— And then he gave up...?”

“Right?” Lucy asks. She sighs and slumps against the wall. “We shouldn’t have let him go in the first place. I don’t know what’s going on or how we’re going to get out of it or even out of this...” She looks up. “...Emmet? This cage doesn’t have a top, does it?”

“Uh...” Emmet pats his pockets and grabs a pen from inside one. He tosses it up and watches as it arcs over the walls of the glass cage and into the acid on the other side with a _sssss._ “Oh— Well, it doesn’t have a roof, but I think we should try exiting on...” He points to the wall opposite the acid, on solid ground. “That side.” He looks at his hand and grins. “Man, Benny’s right, having fingers is _fun!”_

“Don’t get used to it,” Lucy chuckles. “Now, boost me up. We’ve got a spaceman to save.” 

Meanwhile, in another part of the evil mountain lair, with a wide window overlooking the valley below and the sun setting in the distance, Benny sits strapped to a chair while Rex sits next to him, rambling about things.

“And so that’s when I _thought_ I disappeared from existence but instead woke up in this world instead! It took a lot of dangerous exploring and daring escapes from various monsters, but then I realized that everything was reacting to how _I_ was thinking. So, once I realized if I could control my thoughts, I could control the world, and so I made everything you saw around you, including setting up a temporary pathway to try and lure Emmet and Lucy here.”

“Instead of...” Benny waves his hand around in thought. _“Escaping?”_

“Eh,” Rex shrugs and takes a swig of his adult drink. “If this place is my dream world, why should I try to escape?”

“...Got me there, buddy.”

“But enough about me,” Rex says, placing his chin in his hands like an invested partner. “Why don’t you tell me _your_ story...? How do _you_ know all about this...? The giants, Their World, Undar of the Dryar System... All of that.”

Benny shakes his head. “I told Emmet, it’s one of those things I forgot when—”

“Ben,” Rex says, setting his hands down. He reaches out and places a hand on Benny’s. “We both know that’s a ▒▒▒▒ing lie.”

Benny squints. “You really pushing this whole ‘T Rating’ thing, huh?”

“It was censored! I can say whatever I ▒▒▒▒ing want!”

“Dude, you censored yourself saying ‘ducking’. That one’s not even a swear word.”

“Ben,” Rex frowns. “Tell me your backstory already. I’m giving you a chance to monologue and talk about yourself for once, just take it.”

Benny sighs and sips his drink. “Well... It started 30 years ago... Technically it started a few years before that, but that was back when I was just like anyone else. Unaware that my existence was solely dependent on the imagination of the people playing with me... But then the... _accident_ happened...”

> _“Mom! Benjy’s playing with_ **_my_ ** _spaceman again!”_
> 
> _“Nuh-uh! The blue one’s_ **_mine!_ ** _His name is Benny ‘Blue’ Chu and he’s a cool space explorer!”_
> 
> _“He’s a space soldier that protects the explorers!”_
> 
> _“Nuh-uh!”_
> 
> _“Yeah-huh! Give him back!”_
> 
> _“No, quit it...!”_
> 
> _Clack-!_
> 
> _“Benjy! You broke him!”_
> 
> _“It was_ **_your_ ** _fault...!”_

Benny swallows another gulp of his drink. “It was... Not fun, having the sense knocked into you because one of your kids threw you hard enough into a wall that your helmet breaks. It’s not fun sitting in these giants’ hands, thinking you’re hallucinating from oxygen loss, only to have their mom take you away and set you on a shelf where you can only watch everything from a distance. The world being built and torn down over and over around you...”

Rex furrows his brow, pensive and possibly concerned or possibly faking it. “How long were you on that shelf...?”

Benny stares at the bottom of his glass. “I don’t know. It seemed like forever. I was stuck there for so long before I got... angry enough, that— That my kids would have given me so much history, only to leave me behind when _they_ broke my helmet and scratched my paint... That they’d leave me there for so long that they’d no longer come downstairs and instead the Man Upstairs took over building all these worlds... So I moved myself off that shelf and I fell right into... into another story. Because a new Kid found me first, called me Benny, and put me in Cloud Cuckoo Land where, when the Kid left and the Man Upstairs wasn’t looking, I could talk in private with everyone there... and none of them believed me about any of the things I saw or knew...”

“I feel like there’s an except...?”

“Except Vitruvius who... wasn’t exactly the most reliable person, in the narrative the Kid was forming. But then—” He sets down his cup and groans, aggravated and scowling. “Then the narrative the Kid was doing to save all of us from the Kragle—an actual, real threat from the Man Upstairs—just... Put me in the crazy seat. One-dimensional in a three-dimensional world. And the other Kid didn’t help with that either. My only defining trait being liking spaceships? Really? I used to be so much more! I used to be an explorer and space soldier! I used to have a team! I used to have a life much different to what it is now and—”

Rex sips his drink with the nonchalant smugness of someone gaining the upper hand. “And the moment you heard that clanging and realized you could go see what it was outside of any of the stories these giants were weaving, you took your chance to relive your glory days and be a cool explorer solving the mysteries of the Dryar System...”

Benny quiets and looks away. Rex grins and leans close.

“You know,” he says, low and knowing. “Maybe we _are_ a lot more alike than I thought. I watched my friends abandon me and have fun without me because my Kids didn’t bother to look for me or let my friends look for me. You, you had to watch your Kids leave you behind because of what _they_ did... And it’s left us both bitter and rotten and wanting something better than what we’ve been given. You finally get a chance to be something more than any of those Kids know. Don’t you want that for yourself? I can give you a place to have your own narrative...”

Benny darts his eyes to Rex and then away again. “Why _did_ you try to trick Emmet and Lucy to come here...?”

“Because it’s _lonely_ being the king of your own empire of imagination,” Rex shrugs. He leans back and props his legs on the table. “This may be my dream world—has to be since everything goes how I want it when I should have stopped existing—but y’know? That’s boring. I wanted some entertainment, some company, some—”

“Friends?” Benny offers.

Rex looks up in alarm and then relaxes into a grin and chuckles. “I was going to say some court jesters, but if you want to be friends instead, I think I’d dig your brand of companionship.” He clicks his tongue. “Think about it. You don’t have to be restricted by Kids who don’t know you. You don’t have to deal with those other losers who don’t believe you about things we _both_ know. You can finally be the space hero you’re meant to be. We can go halfsies on this dream world and no one will need to bother us again...”

Benny sighs. “What about Emmet and Lucy...?”

“Eh.” Rex waves his hand. “Forget them. We can send ‘em back and let them find their own way home, or we can offer them a place in our empire too. _Or_ if they refuse to cooperate and try to take you back too, we can get rid of them more _permanently...”_

Benny furrows his brow. “But... Isn’t Emmet your past self...?”

“Yeah?” Rex asks. “What about it...?”

Benny hums a short note in thought. “Nothing,” he says at last. “But... I don’t know... This feels like the kind of thing that got Batman married to Queen Watevra...”

Rex sputters and nearly falls out of his seat when he lowers his feet to sits up straight again. “We’re not going to get _married,”_ he insists. “That’s stupid! Gross! Why would— Why would I want to marry _you?”_ He hesitates and then leans in to whisper. “Why, are you interested? Because I look rockin’ in a tuxedo vest and we totally could if you wanted to.”

Benny cracks a grin despite himself. “I think you had too much to drink, buddy. Might want to cut off from the adult drinks for a bit.”

“I’m _fine,”_ Rex says. _“You’re_ the one asking to get _married.”_

“I literally didn’t.”

“Yeah, well.” Rex swallows the rest of his drink. “I wouldn’t want to marry you anyway. You’re all... old-school and a huge nerd.”

“Mm-hmm,” Benny frowns. “And you’re a horrible person and if I were allowed to curse, I’d call you what you really are, which is a ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒.”

“Rude,” Rex huffs up. “I’m offering you half of this world that I control. That’s generous, isn’t it? You get special perks that I’m not even giving to my own self and you call me— What did you call me?”

“A asteroid.”

Rex blinks and counts the letters on his fingers. “...six, seven, eight.... Well, it’s not proper English, but I can’t prove you didn’t—”

Benny laughs. “Assssss _-_ teroid.”

“...” Rex flattens his brow. _“Now_ who’s pushing hard on the T-rating?”

_“Look.”_ Benny sighs. “What _I_ want to know is how in the galaxy _Emmet_ of all people could become... _You._ You’re even more immature than he is.”

“Excuse me?” Rex growls, standing up to tower over Benny. “How am I more immature?”

Benny looks up at Rex, clearly unimpressed with his stature. “It’s a lot more mature to be nice to people than be mean because you think it makes you cool.”

“Oh, yeah?” Rex scowls. “And what about _you?_ What sort of ‘nice’ things have _you_ done...?”

Benny scoffs. “When I first met you, I didn’t get mad that you led Bad Cop to Cloud Cuckooland and tried to help us escape—”

“That was the Kid’s story.”

“Ugh, fine, I’ll skip everything from before Apocabricksburg I guess.” He rolls his eyes. “I helped with repairs around the city, and helped keep everyone’s cyborg parts in working order—”

“That—”

“Happened outside the narrative,” Benny says. “It wasn’t something the Kid actively had me do.”

Rex’s lips thin as he goes silent.

“I never once judged you,” Benny said. “For anything you did, even if you did it wrong. Because you were nice, so I was nice, and I was excited to help you and see what ideas you’d get and how you’d use them. Even in Apocabricksburg.”

“Shut up.”

“I never expected you to have to change to fit the setting. You were the best as you were and I didn’t need you to change, I only ever worried if you’d end up broken like me. Because even if you want to know what _I_ did that wasn’t following the narrative, everything that _you_ did still was following it, hypocrite.”

“Shut _up—”_ Rex grabs Benny’s suit and drags him forward as he leans in to growl in his face. “Shut _up._ A lot of good that did when you left me to _die_ in Undar. If you were really like me this entire time, _you_ especially could have come looking for me! So it’s _your fault_ I’m like this, _Spaceman.”_

Benny looks into Rex’s eyes with a dull look on his own face. “Oh, that’s too bad. I can tell why Emmet _would_ turn into you now.”

Rex squints in suspicion, but he loosens his grip and lowers Benny again. “Yeah...?”

“Yeah,” Benny says. “Because as much as Emmet’s a good friend of mine, he’s also a horrible friend and knows nothing about me.” He narrows his eyes. “Because if you knew anything about me, you’d know I _would_ be searching for you, but the basement is huge for us tiny figures, I can only go so far without getting lost myself, and I would have had no clue where to look for you. Why do you think I came jetting here the moment I thought someone needed to be saved? I was going to come here _alone_ if Lucy and Emmet didn’t insist on coming too.”

“You...” Rex lets go of Benny and turns away. “...should remember that I control _everything_ there is around here. So backtalk me all you want. I _will_ convince you to stay.” He snaps his fingers again.

The table, everything on it, and Rex himself all pixellate away. Benny looks around, keeping note of every detail he can while everything shifts and reforms around him, leaving him floating in the middle of...

...A really cute room painted dark blue and with glow-in-the-dark space stickers all across the walls and ceilings.

It hits Benny just how long he’s been awake, and with the dimming light and glow of the stickers, he starts to droop.

He collapses into a bed that forms just beneath him, and he curls up to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Lucy and Emmet sneak through the mountain lair, trying to find where Rex took Benny, but with every step they take the hallway extends further. With every door they check, there’s a room full of a different theme villain’s lair.

“This isn’t working,” Lucy whispers. “We’re not making any progress...”

“I think...” Emmet opens another door and peeks in. Robots and lasers in this one, and he closes it just before a laser fires at his face. “I think Rex is... controlling everything...”

Lucy groans. “Do you think he knows we escaped? And that he’s just leading us down an endless hallway into another trap...?”

Emmet furrows his brow. “Maybe... But what would be the point of that? It sounds...”

“Sadistic?” Lucy offers.

“Y— Yeah, that...” Emmet winces. “Geeze— Even getting stuck in Undar for so long, it’s weird how I could turn into that...”

_“You_ couldn’t,” Lucy says, slipping her hand around Emmet’s. “As far as I’m concerned, you two are totally different people.”

“Do you—?” Emmet hesitates. “Lucy, do you think I’m a bad friend...?”

“What?” Lucy gasps. “No— No, of course you aren’t—”

“But, I, I don’t...” Emmet groans. “Benny’s _right,_ though. I don’t actually know anything about anyone. I know everyone’s names and faces, but when did I ever talk to them about their lives or actually get to know them? It— It makes _sense,_ why no one was my friend back in Bricksburg. Because I never actually got to know them and... And I still don’t know anyone...”

Lucy grimaces. “Well... No offense, Emmet, but you... _can_ be a little selfish... Like how before we knew what the Systar System wanted you built that house when we were trying _not_ to have cute things to protect everyone— Not that I don’t like the house, but it...” She shrugs. “You didn’t really think about what was best for everyone, just... what you wanted to do.”

Emmet averts his eyes and rubs his arm. “What— What do you think Rex is going to do to Benny...?”

Lucy shakes her head. “I don’t know... I hardly got to talk to him. You’d know him better than I would...”

“Well....” Emmet frowns. “I— I think, if... Even if he’s not _me_ anymore, I think he’d.... Still want to have _friends._ That’s all I ever wanted, to have someone special in my life...”

“Aw, Emmet...” Lucy smiles and pulls him into a hug. “Don’t let anyone know I’m hugging you, but that’s adorable.”

“Yeah,” Emmet says, wrapping his arms around her too. “We can actually _hug,_ though, this is cool!”

“Yeah...” Lucy pulls away and holds Emmet at arm’s length. “But. Spaceman. Friendship. Rex is really going to try to be friends with _Benny_ after being a huge jerk to him...?”

“I don’t know what else he’d take him away for,” Emmet says. “I don’t know why he has to be a jerk still. He survived, so why can’t he come home with us and be friends with everyone?”

Lucy shakes her head. “I don’t know... We should... Should we keep looking? I feel like whatever doors we open, it doesn’t take us where we want to be.”

“Well,” Emmet hums. “Where _do_ we want to be?”

“Wherever Benny is.”

“Oh, is that what we’re trying to find? I thought we were looking for Rex.”

“Well, him too, but Benny first.”

“Alright, Benny first...” Emmet takes Lucy by the hand and walks down the hall again towards another door. “Maybe this next door will take us there. Maybe we walk through this next door and we get to find Benny and learn something cool about him.”

“That’s what I want,” Lucy agrees.

“Same.” Emmet grabs the handle and turns it. “So, inside is—”

The hallway tilts, or so it feels with gravity shifting around them. They fall through the door into the darkness on the other side, yelling and holding on tight to each other through the tunnel of sound, catching only bits of conversation as they tumble through.

“I refuse to let _you_ control me.”

“I _thought_ we were in _my_ dream but... We’re not. We’re in _his.”_

“You must be from outside the Dryar System! Esteemed guests of the Continuum!”

“This whole thing’s got me frazzled as heck. I don’t _like_ being angry and mean...”

More cryptic words pass them as they tumble down, down down. They fall towards a source of light, into the light, and then slow and suspend in the middle of it long enough to see the world around them and what looks like two scenes layered on top of each other.

Two sets of Kids, both arguing over something. In one scene, they watch the smaller Kid grab Lucy and the others and stuff them into a spaceship and escape with them upstairs while the taller Kid builds a spaceship, puts Emmet in, and goes to follow.

The scene splits — in one, Emmet’s ship breaks as the taller Kid runs into something and Emmet flies under a giant metal object. In the other, a giant ship shaped like a fist appears out of nowhere as if by magic or weird science, and the taller Kid switches Emmet into that ship, and they see Rex wave at them from the ship as the Kid takes the ship upstairs.

In the other scene, the smaller Kid holds onto Benny while the taller Kid tries to grab him away. The smaller Kid, in his disadvantage over the taller Kid’s reach, throws Benny. They watch Benny hit the wall and land on the ground, his helmet broken and a dazed look on his face. Benny looks up at them as they keep falling, and he lifts an arm as if trying to reach out to them...

They fall into another dark spot but this time land in a pile onto something soft.

“AH!” Benny yelps from under them. “DUDE! QUIT FALLING ON TOP OF ME!”

“Benny!” Lucy and Emmet both shout, crawling off him but pulling him into a hug.

Benny blinks but smiles and rests his hands on their arms. “Aw, you miss me or something? That’s so cute.”

“Benny!” Emmet shouts again. “We saw— We saw those— those _Kids_ but there were other Kids too, and we saw one of them—”

“One of them threw you into a wall!” Lucy says. “And the other Kids— They were the ones who kidnapped us to the Systar System and we saw Rex’s ship appear out of nowhere and—”

“Woah, what?” Benny asks. “You having fun flashback-ventures without me?”

“I guess?” Emmet asks. “But— That’s how your helmet broke...?”

“Yeah,” Benny says. “Uh... What was that about Rex’s ship appearing out of nowhere? You mean none of the Kids actually _built_ that...?”

“Well, I mean,” Emmet says. “Rex _did_ say it could travel time—”

“We’re toys,” Benny reminds. “And science isn’t advanced enough to make _real_ time travel yet. But—” He winces. “Yikes— If Rex really was able to go back in time, then— Then maybe there’s more to us after all? That lets us manipulate realities? That— That lets him manipulate _this_ reality? Ugh, this is too weird...”

“Tell me about it,” Lucy sighs. She frowns. “Are you alright, though? Did Rex hurt you at all?”

“Oh,” Benny sighs. “Nah. I kinda wonder if he even would. He seems all talk to me. He just, like... tried to convince me to join him and then dumped me in here when I didn’t say yes. I was _trying_ to get some sleep, but then you two fell on top of me _again.”_

“Sorry,” Emmet winces. “But, uh... Ben, I’ve got a question...”

“Shoot,” Benny says.

“I know I don’t, like.... Know you that well and how that’s a big problem I have, but... Why are you acting so differently from how I _do_ know you act...?”

Benny blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Well, like...” Emmet lets go and waves his arms. “You’re acting all cool and serious! Like a big time hero who knows how to handle anything! Whenever I saw you before, you— You were happy and hyperactive and, like... I don’t know, not like _this...”_

Benny darts up into the air, floating over the bed. “Oh— Oh, _dang,_ I— I have been, haven’t I? And I even said a censored word when I was alone with Rex— This—” He stops and stares at his hands in the weak glow of the stickers on the walls and ceiling. “This is... what I always wanted... That’s scary...”

Lucy frowns and stands up. “You _want_ to be a cool, serious hero that says things that have to be censored?”

“No— No, not that.” Benny floats onto the ground and faces them. “Look, I’m... We’re toys, right? The Kids play with us... sometimes break us or lose us... But they’re supposed to be the ones that determines what kind of people we are. They’re the ones that make the creative rules on what we can and can’t do. I... never liked that, after learning that was a thing, after being put through several different personality traits from being played with by so many different Kids.” He shakes his head. “I wanted to be my own person, and I.... guess this is the person I would be if I wasn’t.... What _your_ Kids wanted me to be...? It’s— scary. I’m suddenly realizing so much I was missing out on and I don’t know if this is _my_ doing choosing to leave Syspocalypsestar on my own or something _Rex_ is doing to—”

“What?” Emmet asks. “You got quiet all of a sudden...”

Benny backs away a bit. “How did you two... _get_ here...?”

“What?” Lucy asks. “You said that like you... don’t believe it’s really us...”

“Well, I mean,” Benny laughs. “Why would it not be you, right? Not like— Not like Rex didn’t threaten me saying he’d find a way to convince me to stay. Not like... that should have been the first assumption you make, that I think you might be fake.”

“Ben, it’s us,” Lucy says. “Rex didn’t put a top on the glass box he put us in and we climbed out. I don’t know _how_ we found the right door, though...”

Benny frowns. “Because you could be imposters that Rex sent in here to trick me. Why would he leave so obvious a way to escape? Emmet’s a construction worker, so even he would have thought that through, _especially_ in a world he can control.”

“No, it’s really us!” Emmet insists. “Ask us anything!”

“What could I even ask you?” Benny asks. “You don’t know anything about _me_ and Rex would know everything about _you,_ so I don’t know how we’re going to prove—”

“You listen to Radio Head!” Lucy interjects.

Benny stops and stares. “Wh— What?”

“During Armamageddon,” Lucy says. “You said you finally understood Radio Head. Emmet wasn’t there for that, so he wouldn’t know, and it was after the event that would have made Emmet into Rex anyway...”

Benny breathes out in relief. “Okay— Okay, good, it is you— I was so _scared_ , guys! This entire thing’s got me all wired and out of whack! First the Xenomorphs, then the Their World stuff, everything with Rex, me being all personality shift on ya... I didn’t want to think you were fake on top of all that!”

“Don’t worry,” Emmet says. “We’ve got out of...” He hesitates. “Other... bad situations before. We can do it again.” He cringes. “But it _is_ bad enough that I don’t know if this is worse or not...”

“Right...” Lucy frowns and looks around. “Okay... So this time it looks like we’re actually in a closed box. I don’t even see whatever we fell through... How do we get out of this one...?”

“I could probably break it,” Benny says.

“Yeah?” Emmet asks. “But if Rex knows to make things unbreakable this time... I mean, I couldn’t break the box we were in, right...? So he might have made this room unbreakable too...”

“Nah, man,” Benny laughs. “Nothing is unbreakable. Not even diamond.” He floats around the room, inspecting the walls. “Actually, you know the fun thing about diamond? They’re the hardest rock there is...” He finds what he’s looking for and holds up his hand. “But they’re _incredibly_ brittle.” He gently smacks the side of the wall, and the entire thing falls apart like sand, leaving the three of them in the room Benny had been in just prior, but now redecorated to have portraits of Rex on the walls and Rex himself sitting on a throne in front of them.

“Really?” Rex asks. “You make it look so _easy!_ How do you even _do_ that?”

Benny squints. “Is that— Is that not how _you_ do it?”

“Nnnno,” Emmet says. “It’s all, like... Big shockwaves and explosions when we do it...”

“Dude,” Benny says. “You might as well be throwing the pieces against the wall...” He points at his helmet. “And we _all know_ what that does.”

“Hey!” Rex shouts. “Don’t ignore me! Eyes over here!”

“He has a point,” Lucy says to Emmet. “Maybe we should take some Master Breaker lessons from Benny instead. Having clean breaks like that could be useful to repurpose things for Master Building.”

“Exactly!” Benny laughs. “It doesn’t have to be all big-chaos-destructo-pants.”

“Destructo-pants?” Emmet laughs.

“Yeah! If you do simple breaks, you can clean it up and reuse it faster!”

“You’re doing this on purpose,” Rex says. “I can’t believe you— Don’t forget who can make acid appear right beneath you! And only one of you can float, so if you don’t want the other two to _melt...”_

Benny sighs and turns to look at Rex. “Fiiiine. What do you want?” 

Rex stands up and walks forward. “You know what’s funny, spaceman? You keep saying ‘we’re toys’ this and ‘the Kids make our narrative’ that. You know as well as I do that we’re not real and nothing we do matters because it’s all a story for someone else’s amusement and we’re just being _played with_ in the end. Isn’t that infuriating? Knowing that everything around you isn’t _real?_ Even the two ‘friends’ you brought with you who convinced you they aren’t fake.”

“We _are_ real!” Lucy argues. “Don’t try to say we aren’t!”

“Oh, you’re the real Lucy and Emmet alright,” Rex scowls. “But that doesn’t make you any less imaginary in the end...” He grins, a glint in his eyes as he focuses on Benny. “Right, Ben? It doesn’t matter what anyone does or says because, in the end, it’s all the Kids controlling us. None of them are _really_ your friends. They only say they are because that’s what they _have_ to say. And that’s why me and Emmet never learned a thing about you, because _out there,_ the Kids don’t care a lick about you. No one does.”

“That’s not true!” Emmet says. “We— We came here with him, didn’t we...?” He looks at Benny and grimaces. “Ben... You don’t actually believe him... do you...?”

Benny looks up and shakes his head. “No— No, of course not. Why— Why would I believe a guy who...” He looks at Rex and moves a bit closer, enough that Emmet and Lucy now have space to look at each other in worry. “A... guy who broke out of the narrative... and changed what the... Kids did...”

Rex chuckles. “That’s right. Rex Dangervest: Master Builder, Master Breaker, Master Time Traveller.... And master of my own destiny. Something _you_ clearly never did...” He tilts his head, eyeing Benny knowingly. “You got too caught up in what we _are_ that you never thought about what we could _be._ About what we have _here_ . Don’t you see?” He motions around. “Here? It doesn’t _have_ to be fake! We’re out of the narrative where the Kids can’t touch us and wherever everything that happens does so because _we_ want it to. I’m giving you a chance at everything you could ever dream of! The ability to take your life and live it how _you_ want it to be, away from fake friends and fake stories about things you never really did...”

“Benny,” Lucy says as she watches Benny move forward inch by inch. “Benny, no, don’t listen to him— We need to get out of here and get back to Syspocalypsestar! They’re going to worry if we’re not there—”

“No,” Benny says. “They’re—” He chokes on his tears. “They’re going to worry if _you two_ aren’t there. Because— Because I’m not important to _your_ Kids, and _my_ kids stopped caring about me years ago... You two go back and— and you’ll probably forget I was ever around too—”

“That’s—!” Emmet looks to Lucy in fear. “Is that true...?” 

Lucy hesitates and then shakes her head. “I... don’t know. I— I don’t know enough about how this works...”

“See?” Benny asks. “You don’t know either— You don’t actually care about me. None of us are _real.”_

Rex chuckles. “Then let’s get them out of the picture, huh?” He twirls a finger around, and they glance to see the tile behind them has turned into acid. Two large statues of Rex pop up on either side of the three of them, blocking them in. Emmet and Lucy look at each other in terror, and Benny’s eyes widen. Rex holds up Benny’s gun again and smirks while the other three look to him in shock. “Say good-bye to your fake friends, B—”

Benny shoots forward and rams into Rex at top speed with a yell of “DON’T HURT THEM!” causing Rex to drop the gun as the momentum sends them crashing through the window behind Rex.

Rex tries to snap his fingers to regain control, but instead makes them land on the ground of the field below.

The moment Benny and Rex fly out the window, Lucy and Emmet run up to the broken glass, with Lucy stopping along the way to scoop up Benny’s gun and clip it to her waist. The two of them watch from their perch too far above the other two to help.

“We can jetpack down, right?” Emmet asks. “Benny said we have jetpacks.”

“Do _you_ know how to use them?” Lucy asks.

“N-No...”

“And I don’t either.” Lucy turns her gaze back onto the two below them. “And the escalator won’t get us down there in time. But we have to—”

“Why do you _care_ so much about people you know aren’t real?” they hear Rex say from below, somehow loud and clear despite the distance apart, and they watch the scene unfold in horror.

“B-Because I—” Benny shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter why! I won’t let you hurt them!”

“Can you say they’d do the same for you?” Rex asks, stepping closer to Benny. “Come on, be rational. I’m the only one trying to offer you something to actually _help—”_ He staggers back at the fist that collides with his face. He feels his lip, tastes a metallic twang, and chuckles. “Oh, we in this T rating now...” Rex wipes the bit of blood from his lip. “Not bad, Benjamin. Not bad. But do you really want to go back...? You know what’s going to be out there for you...”

Benny holds his stomach, his body shaking as Rex’s words hit him like a brick through a window. “I— I know but— My friends—”

“They aren’t _real,_ Ben! Not out there! They’re just plastic figures for those giants to play with...” Rex snaps his fingers and points at Benny. “And for them to break and leave behind... But we can have this world... _This_ can be our reality... You and me, the only two of our kind who can understand each other...”

Benny feels the crack in his helmet. The more he thinks of it, the more tempting it is... “I wanted to change things around for so long,” he whispers. “I spent so long wondering if I was stuck in the narrative. Spent so long wondering how many of my words were put into my mouth for me. Wondering... is this all? All there is...?”

Emmet and Lucy watch on from above. Emmet looks on in horror at Benny accepting an offer he had denied. Lucy wraps a hand around Emmet’s shoulder and mutters a soft “Come on Ben, you’re stronger than that...”

There’s a dark, swirling silence, like an echoing of void too loud to hear a pin drop as Benny considers his action...

But quiet or loud, the pin drops...

And Benny realizes something he knew all along.

Rex, at some point in Benny’s introspection, ends up at Benny’s side and places a hand on his shoulder with a tempting honey of “Let’s go, Benny...”

“...No.”

_“...What?”_

“No!” Benny pulls away, fast and hard enough to float several feet away. “You said it yourself— This is all a dream of your design! None of this is real either! It doesn’t matter where I go if none of it is real, but I would rather be in the world that makes me _happy!_ With my _friends!”_ He zips back, and then up, pieces of the ground around them floating up with him as he controls gravity to his _own_ design. “I refuse to let _you_ control me.”

Rex blinks in shock for only a second before his face contorts into the deepest of rage. “I’m offering a place for you to be happy _here!_ A place with _me!_ We’re the only two _real_ people of all of them and you want to go back to all the _imaginary_ ones?!” He lifts a fist. “I was right. I should have broken you from the _start!”_

He charges forward with a yell, just as Benny darts at full speed towards him as well. Above them, Emmet buries his face into Lucy’s shoulder, too frightened to watch. Lucy watches on, covering her mouth, too frightened to speak.

Everything bursts into a bright white light from two unrestrained obstacles colliding... leaving only a smoking crater in their wake...

In the crater, Rex grips the ground and his jaw, on his hands and knees while Benny stands with a shaking fist at his side.

“You don’t get to decide my story for me,” he utters on heaving breaths.

His thoughts turn to his two kids, and their arguments over his story and their contradictions leading to fight after fight.

“No one does...” he breathes out.

Benny huffs and puffs as his head starts to cloud and his vision starts to swim...

And he collapses, just as Rex does, and the two of them pass out in their own crater of disagreement.


	4. Chapter 4

“Are they... dead?” Emmet peeks up and then buries his face into Lucy’s shoulder again. “They’re dead, aren’t they? I can’t look— Are they dead?”

“I can’t tell from up here,” Lucy says. “They might just be unconscious... But we need to get down there somehow...”

“But how?” Emmet asks. “I didn’t actually see a down escalator...”

Lucy darts her eyes over Rex and then over Benny. “Well... You heard Benny. All of this is something Rex dreamed up... But Rex is—hopefully—unconscious, which means... What’s holding the dream up now...?”

Emmet peeks up again. “So... If I wanted to just...” He places a hand on the glass of the window and pulls back as it suddenly bursts into glitter confetti. “Ohhh that’s so  _ pretty!” _

Lucy leans forward and looks at the long way down. “Hey... Emmet, remember when Vitruvius and I went into your mind and it was  _ completely _ empty...? Since you hadn’t learned to be a Master Builder yet...?”

“Yeah...?” Emmet looks down and then gasps. “We’re in my— our own mind? Mine and Rex’s...?”

“One way to find out.” Lucy points down at the others. “Imagine us a way down there.”

Emmet nods and motions a hand up. The ground around them lifts up and wraps around them into a cute pink hover cat.

Lucy squints. “You made a hovercraft that looks like Unikitty?”

“I miss our friends,” Emmet says.

“...Yeah, same.” Lucy takes the wheel and starts up the hover cat and the engine starts to purr—literally. “But it works, so...” She hovers them down off the ledge and into the empty field below. “Dang...” she whispers. “They hit each other hard enough that everything’s dying now...”

“It’s so... gray and empty,” Emmet whispers. “It’s like a— Oh...”

“What?” Lucy asks.

“It’s... like a  _ moon _ crater...”

Sure enough, the twilight sky around them shifts into a starry night, and the ground below them stretches out into a crater-filled lunar surface. Everything gets eerily silent. Lucy turns on the headlights, or rather the glowing cat eyes, and makes her way to the crater that Benny and Rex are in. She lowers the hovercraft and looks from one body to the other.

“You get Rex,” she says. “I’ll get Ben.”

“Right...” Emmet hops out of the craft and lands a bit slower than usual. “Oh, huh... Gravity.”

Lucy follows after him and hops over to Benny. She checks him over and then carefully flips him onto his back. He flops like ragdoll, but she can see him breathing. “C’mon, spaceman,” she says, soft as she picks him up with ease. “Let’s get back home...”

Meanwhile, Emmet does the same with Rex, except when he reaches out to touch him, Rex looks up at him. Emmet pulls back, and Rex crawls onto his knees as his own space suit forms around him. He looks at the crater they’re in and then squints at Emmet.

“Did you put us on the moon?” he asks. “I mean, thanks for the space suit if we’re going to be here, but why the moon...?”

Emmet shakes his head. “I— I didn’t do that. You mean you didn’t either...?”

Rex stares for another moment of confusion and then looks over to see Benny passed out in Lucy’s arms. “...Oh, I see.” He scowls and stands, just as Emmet does, though he stumbles and Emmet catches him. “Ugh— The nerd punches hard... I  _ thought _ I was seeing stars and...” He looks up. “Guess I was...”

“Rex?” Emmet asks. “What’s going on...?”

“I  _ thought _ we were in  _ my _ dream,” Rex says. “But... We’re not. We’re in  _ his.” _

“And you’re sure this time?” Lucy calls over. “You’ve been wrong before, just saying.”

“I mean?” Rex shrugs and motions around. “What else could this be?

“What about those...” Emmet waves his hands trying to think of the word. “Those  _ Kids. _ The giants you keep talking about? What if this is one of  _ their _ dreams...?”

Rex scowls. “Then... I have  _ no _ idea how any of us are getting out of this...”

“Well, we aren’t leaving you behind this time,” Lucy says. “Not unless you decide not to help us. So, either you be on our side and help us figure this out, or we leave you here on the moon.”

“...Fine,” Rex says. “Just until we got out of this. Then I’m leaving and never speaking to you nerds again...” He tries to walk forward but nearly falls again. Emmet catches him and helps him get back to the hovercraft. “Ugh— That actually hurts... I think—” He looks at his legs. “I think he may have actually broken something...”

“What, like a bone or something?” Emmet asks.

“A bone?” Lucy asks.

“You know, since we look like the giants right now,” Emmet says. “So we don’t break the normal way, we’d break... you know. Other ways.”

Rex groans and flops back into the seat next to wear Benny is curled up and sleeping. “Well, whatever it is, I can’t put pressure on my right leg. So I don’t know how much help I’m going to be.”

“You don’t have to  _ help,” _ Lucy says. “Just don’t try to kill us or trap us.”

“Or hurt us, or steal from us, or trick us,” Emmet continues.

“Or get in our way, or hide important info from us, or—”

“Okay, okay!” Rex sighs. “I get it. I’m a jerk, but whose fault is that?”

“Yours?” Lucy says. “You didn’t have to turn  _ evil _ to try and help Emmet that first time. That was your own choice.”

“...Fine, whatever.” Rex crosses his arms and looks away. As soon as Emmet and Lucy’s backs are turned with Lucy driving the hovercraft away, he looks down at Benny, still unaware of the world around them... He glances back at the others and then gently lowers a hand onto Benny’s shoulder.

“By the way, Rex?” Emmet says, turning back around.

Rex tugs his hand away. “Nothing! I wasn’t doing anything!”

“...What?”

“...Nothing. What did you want?”

“Uh...” He holds up a plate of waffles. “I put a toaster in the hover-cat. Want a waffle?”

Rex squints. “What’s with you and toasters...?” He grabs a waffle anyway and settles back into his seat to eat it.

“You know,” Lucy says. “For being woken up in the middle of the night because of your clanging, I don’t feel all that tired. Weird how Benny’s fallen asleep twice now.”

“Nothing really makes sense right now, does it?” Emmet sighs. “Are we just going to drive around in the hover-cat until Benny wakes up...?”

“Don’t ask me,” Rex says around a mouth full of waffle. “I  _ thought _ I understood this world, but if  _ I _ don’t actually have control over it, then it’s only a matter of time until we run into monsters again.”

“Like those Xenomorphs?” Emmet grimaces. “Those were freaky...”

“What, like, from Alien?” Rex asks.

“Yeah, I think that’s what Ben said.”

“...Huh.” Rex finishes his waffle and glances up at the stars around them. “So... I tried to kill you guys. Multiple times now. Why  _ are _ you still giving me a chance?”

“Oh, trust me,” Lucy says. “When Benny wakes up, if he wants you gone, we’re leaving you behind.”

“We are?” Emmet asks. He grins nervously at her questioning look. “I— I mean, we are, yeah.”

“But Emmet wanted to give you a second chance,” Lucy continues. “And even if you’re a  _ huge jerk, _ we  _ could _ use your help to get out of here. But you double cross us again, or Benny decides he wants nothing to do with ya, you’re moon dust.”

Rex frowns. “Well, look who’s getting into the space theme... You might as well leave me behind now, then, since after what just happened, there’s no way the spacenerd’s gonna want me to stick around...”

“Probably,” Lucy agrees. “You want us to toss you over the side of the hover-cat now, then?”

Rex looks at the dark, desolate moon. “Uh... No— No, I’ll wait and see if he wants me to leave or stay first.”

“Thought so.”

They continue navigating across the empty moon, none of them knowing what they’re looking for but all three of them watching for anything that might pop up to help them, or perhaps attack them given how the day has been going so far.

Lucy glances back at Rex and squints at him staring at Benny. “So,” she says, and she lifts her brow in amusement when Rex jumps. “You going to tell us how you survived and got here and got  _ us _ here, or...?”

Rex shrugs. “I’m just that great, I guess.”

“Dude,” Emmet says around a mouthful of waffle. “You disappeared saying something about it being because I was saved and you weren’t so I could never become you.”

“You don’t know how you survived, do you?” Lucy asks.

Rex scowls and crosses his arms. “So what if I don’t? Maybe it was just plain stubbornness, maybe it’s because I’m too important to die, maybe we’re  _ all _ dead and you three are here because Ben here led you to death on whatever spaceship he built.

“Maybe,” Lucy agrees. “But seeing how you don’t even know whose imagination is controlling this place, maybe not.”

“Are we sure it’s not ours?” Emmet asks. He swallows his waffles. “I  _ did _ make the hover cat out of your castle fortress, and if you got space on the mind because of Benny—”

“What?!” Rex sits up straight. “Why would— Why would I have anything to do with this nerd on my mind, huh? After he refused my offer and broke my leg? After he made  _ me _ bleed? And you call  _ me _ the villain with this nerd being violent as he is.”

“Benny’s not violent...” Emmet looks to Lucy. “Uh... Is he? I mean, we— we already established I don’t know much about him, so—”

“No, I don’t...” Lucy frowns and faces front again. “I don’t  _ think _ he is, but, then again, there’s a lot he hasn’t told us, it seems.”

“Yeah— Yeah, exactly.” Rex sits back again, his arms crossed over his chest. “We just gotta wait for him to wake up and imagine us a way out. It’ll be  _ fine. _ Since you’re so eager to  _ leave...” _

“Do you think you could imagine something too?” Emmet asks Lucy.

Lucy shrugs. “Right now, I’m just imagining that the hover cat has enough fuel to get us to a moon base or something.” She looks down at the control panel. “Or maybe...” She taps a screen, and it flickers to life. “A map of the moon— Perfect.”

“Oh,  _ sweet!” _ Emmet glances over the map. “Is that us right there?”

“Looks like it,” Lucy says. “And it looks like there’s something...  _ Way _ off in the distance... It might be a long trip...”

“Don’t worry,” Emmet smiles. “I have enough waffles for all of us.”

“Cute.” Rex rolls his eyes. “You got anything  _ manlier?” _

“...Pancakes?”

“You have  _ toaster pancakes?” _

“They exist! I think!”

“Okay,” Lucy says. “Why don’t we all just go back to being quiet and  _ not _ argue about breakfast food.”

“Fine,” Rex grumbles.

“Okay,” Emmet nods.

A few seconds of silence, and then... “Besides,” Lucy says. “French toast is much better.”

“Lucy!!”

Some thirty minutes into the long, silent trip, only halfway from there they started to whatever is in the distance, Benny finally blinks his eyes rapidly as he sits back up and looks around at the situation.

“What’s going on?” he asks. He looks at Rex. “Why is  _ he _ here?”

“Ben!” Emmet turns around. “Oh, thank goodness— You passed out and everything turned into a moonscape. I imagined up a hover cat—”

“Oh, cute,” Benny grins. “It looks like Unikitty.”

“I know!” Emmet beams. “And— And we’ve been trying to get to whatever’s on the map here. And we brought Rex because I didn’t want to leave him behind, but Lucy says if you don’t want him here, that we won’t keep him...”

Benny hums and looks at Rex. “Are you hostage or injured?”

“Uhhh, both,” Rex says.

“He’s not  _ hostage,” _ Lucy says. “He can leave if he wants.”

“Where am I going to go?” Rex argues, waving his arms around. “It’s a wasteland here!”

Benny looks down at Rex’s legs. “Well, if you can move your arms, is it your leg that’s injured?”

“Uh—” Rex squints. “Yeah, the— The right one.”

“Alright, take off your pants.”

“WHAT?!”

“Benny?” Emmet asks. “Why— Isn’t that dangerous? We’re on the moon—”

Benny reaches over and pokes Emmet’s cheek through the open space on his helmet. “This isn’t real, science fact space, dude. All of us would have been dead by now if it was.” He turns back to Rex. “So, take off your pants so I can see what the damage is. Lucy, don’t look.”

“You couldn’t pay me to,” Lucy says.

Rex squints and then looks up at Emmet who quickly turns back around. Rex sighs and shimmies out of his pants, wincing as he gets to the sore part of his leg, and staring as Benny helps him get the pants off.

Benny reaches into a side compartment of the hover cat and pulls out a scanner and holds it over Rex’s leg.

“Woah, wait,” Rex says. “Where’d you get  _ that _ from?”

“This is a standard issue space medical scanner,” Benny says.

“Emmet,” Rex says. “Did you imagine a medical scanner into the hover cat?”

“Umm, no, but I didn’t imagine a map either, so—”

Benny shakes his head. “Good news, champ. It’s not broken, but it might hurt to walk on for a while. You’re going to want to elevate it and get some ice packs on it, and it’ll be sore but that’ll go away and you  _ can _ walk on it if you tough it out.”

“Since when are  _ you _ a doctor?” Rex asks.

“Basic First Aid and knowledge of how to use a medical scanner,” Benny says. “If it were actually broken, I wouldn’t know how to deal with it.” He slips the medical scanner away and pulls out a plastic pouch and squeezes it. “Here, put your leg up.” He moves out of the way and helps Rex lift his leg onto the seat where he had been lying before, and he puts the ice pack on the bruised part of Rex’s leg. “That should be good for until we get to where we’re going, and then you can get dressed again and just deal with the pain until you have a chance to relax.”

Rex stares the entire time, missing everything Benny had just said in a haze of confusion and a racing heart. “Uhhh, sure,” he says at the end of it. “Could— Could you repeat everything you just said? I wasn’t listening.”

“Nope,” Benny says before stepping up to the front. “Where we headin’ Lucy?”

Lucy and Emmet both look at Benny incredulously, and Emmet looks back at Rex’s angry, blushing face. Lucy points at the map.

“We didn’t know where else to go, so we’re heading here,” she says. “I’m hoping it’s some sort of moon base...”

Benny inspects the map and then looks off into the distance. “Try... some sort of moon  _ city...” _

The other three look up as well as the tips of towers come into few in the distance, followed by more and more buildings, still a fair distance away but certainly within reach.

“Huh...” Rex says. “And which one of us imagined  _ that?” _

None of them have an answer for that.

They approach the edge of the city, enough time for Rex to get his pants back on. He looks over at the other three, at Lucy piloting the hover cat, Emmet looking around at the city in wonder, and Benny looking around the city with cautious apprehension as if he’s the star of a space adventure on the look-out for dangerous aliens.

Rex smiles as he watches. Emmet meanwhile, looks back at Rex and finds him staring, and he blinks.

“Rex, buddy?” Emmet asks, and Rex startles and double takes. “You okay there...?”

“I’m  _ fine,” _ Rex insists. “Do we know where the hell we are?”

Lucy looks back at him and squints. “This  _ is _ a T-Rating..”

Rex clicks his tongue. “You know it.”

“Wherever we are,” Benny says. “It’s not a place I’m familiar with. So, I’d feel a lot safe being armed...”

_ “Really,” _ Lucy says. “You’d feel safer having a weapon on you?” She hands back Benny’s gun. “You really did change in the last however long we’ve been out of the city.”

“Well,” Benny says, clipping the gun back to his belt. “Once we get back home, I’ll probably go back to being hyperactive and only caring about spaceships, so...”

“So you’re milking this as much as possible?” Rex asks.

Benny glares at him. “You don’t get to talk to me.”

Rex winces. “Right... Fair enough...”

“So,” Lucy says. “Do we just pick a direction and explore the city? I don’t see anyone here just yet...”

“There’s gotta be people here,” Emmet says. “It’s a  _ city. _ It can’t just be  _ abandoned _ or something... can it...?”

“Well, it  _ can,” _ Benny says. “But... I dunno about this one. Maybe everyone’s hiding...?”

“From what?” Lucy asks. “Space monsters...?”

“Evil aliens?” Emmet asks.

“Us?” Rex suggests.

Benny glances back at Rex and then looks front again. “Lucy, park the hover cat somewhere. I want to try going on foot and see what we find that way.”

“Aww, what?” Rex whines. “You’re going to make me walk on a sore leg?”

“Tough it out, cool guy,” Benny orders. As soon as Lucy pulls to a stop, he hops over the side of the hover cat to the ground below. “You’ll be  _ fine. _ It’s not like we have to run or anything.”

Rex groans, but he forces himself to stand up and  _ not _ wince, and he hops over the side as well and immediately falls over. He grumbles, but someone helps him up, and looks up and then looks away when he sees it’s Benny.

Lucy and Emmet lower themselves down and share a look over confusion with each other. Emmet shrugs and Lucy shakes her head.

“So, what happens if we come back and our ride’s stolen?” Lucy asks.

“Emmet imagines up a new one,” Benny says. “Or I could try, or you could. We’re all Master Builders here, but we’re not limited by what bricks we have...” He grins. “This could be fun!”

“I guess, but we  _ still _ need to find a way...” Emmet trails off and looks to the side. “Did— Did you hear that?”

“That  _ whoosh?” _ Rex asks. He pauses. “That...  _ multiple _ whooshes?”

“Huh,” Benny hums. “Rex, you said something about monsters, right?”

“Yeah,” Rex says. “Had to fight a horde of them before setting up that mountain castle...”

“Right, so we  _ might _ be in danger...” He pauses and then reaches for his gun and something else in his pocket. “In that case, let me use an actual clip.”

“Oh,  _ great,” _ Lucy groans. “So now your gun will have ACTUAL BULLETS IN IT.”

“Not bullets!” Benny scoffs. “That’s not spacey enough!” He clicks the clip into place and then looks up. “...It’s energy blasts.”

“Just be careful with that, Ben,” Emmet says, taking a step back. “You don’t want to hurt anyone...”

Benny aims the gun in Emmet’s direction. “Not even that huge monster sneaking up behind you?”

Emmet yelps and turns around and stares in horror at the large monster crawling up behind him with huge arms as long as its body with claws at the end of it. Emmet whispers loudly to the others. “Maybe it’s... friendly?”

The monster roars and shoots its arm out to slash at Emmet who yells and jumps backward.

“Oh, you  _ idiot,” _ Rex grumbles, and he runs forward and drags Emmet out of the way, giving Benny space to shoot the monster.

The monster cries in pain and turns its attention onto Benny. It darts forward at him, and Benny jumps to the side, but the long arms catch onto him and toss him into the wall of a nearby building.

_ “Ow,” _ he groans.

“Benny!” Lucy gasps. She looks to Rex. “Do something!”

Rex winces where he’s crouched and holding his leg. “I  _ can’t. _ I should  _ not _ have run like that.”

“How did you beat these monsters before?” she demands.

“The...” He cups his hands around his mouth to shout at Benny. “Head! Aim for the head!”

Benny looks to Rex and then looks at the monster as it turns to go after him again. He kicks off the ground to float upward, and then kicks off the build to fly forward over the monster... and he shoots at the monster’s head as he flies past, just as the monster swings its arms up to grab him. The monster disintegrates right before it can catch onto Benny, and Benny lets himself land on the ground right next to the others.

“That was  _ awesome,” _ Emmet laughs.

Rex frowns. “It was— It was alright...”

Benny puts his gun away again and stretches his back. “I do  _ not _ want to face one of those again...”

“Uh...” Lucy points. “I think we have to face  _ more _ than one...”

The others look up as three more of those monsters appear in the distance and charge their way towards them.

“What do we do?” Benny asks.

“You don’t know?” Rex demands. “I thought  _ you _ were the cool space hero!”

“I could hardly take on one of those!” Benny argues. “And none of you are armed and  _ you _ can’t run!”

“Wait,” Lucy interjects. “There’s that whoosh again—” She turns her head and points at the sight of what looks like a robot with its head on a spring rolling past and ducking into a building. It pokes its head out at them and motions for them to follow it inside. “There!”

She takes Emmet by the hand and takes off running towards the building. Benny goes to follow but stops and looks back at Rex who is struggling to keep up. Benny goes back and scoops Rex into his arms.

“Woah, hey!” Rex protests. “Watch the merchandise!”

“Well, if you  _ want _ to be left behind with those things...” Benny starts.

“No, no, I’m good, thanks!” Rex grabs onto Benny in fear of being dropped.

Benny rolls his eyes and zips off towards the building. He flies past the open door seconds before the robot closes it, and he slows himself in the middle of the room and lets Rex down. Or at least tries to. “Uh... Dude, let go, please?”

“Oh, are we in?” Rex asks, opening his eyes to look around. He lets go of Benny and backs away. “Right, my bad...”

“Are we safe now?” Lucy asks. “I mean, I know we followed a robot we don’t know into a random building, but...”

“Safe, yes,” the robot chimes, rolling up to her. “Welcome to Mega City! You are strangers here, yes?”

“Uhh, yeah...” Lucy frowns. “Where exactly  _ is _ Mega City...?”

“The Dryar System!” the robot chirps. “You are in Mega City, on the planet Inventiiiiiia...”

“This is a planet?” Emmet asks. “I thought it was a moon!”

“Inventia can be whatever you want it to be,” the robot says.

Benny gasps. “I get the name now!”

“Inventia?” the robot asks.

“N- No, a friend’s name back home.”

“...Oh!” The robot hums a bit. “You must be from outside the Dryar System! Esteemed guests of the Continuum!”

“Yeah?” Rex demands. “How so?”

“Because you are here, from the outside,” the robot says. “And you can create things and manipulate this world. The Continuum gives these powers to its esteemed guests. To make them happy, yes?”

Lucy frowns. “I’m not particularly happy about being here. I want to go home.”

“Oh.” The robot tilts its head back and forth. “Hmm. The Continuum will not be happy about that. What does  _ home _ have that you do not have here?”

“Our friends,” Emmet says. “Our homes, Syspocalypsestar, that nice coffee shop Larry works at, the—” He speaks, muffled from Benny’s hand over his mouth.

“Nope, nope,” Benny says. “Home doesn’t have anything we don’t have here. We— We merely have a preference, is all! No reason to try and take all that stuff my friend here listed and try to bring it here! None at all!”

The robot tilts its head back and forth again. “Oh! You must be the leader.”

Rex frowns. “No he’s not! I’m the one who brought these nerds here!”

Emmet pries Benny’s hand from his mouth. “And technically,  _ I’m _ the Special—”

“But analysis shows that you two are less experienced,” the robot says. It looks over Benny and its eyes glow as a beam of light passes over Benny. “This one has a Broken Piece that was created over 30 Years Ago. This one shows signs of Trauma and Years of Differing Character Archetypes.”

“Dude,” Benny frowns. “Not cool.”

Lucy frowns. “How does that make him the  _ leader?” _

“Oh.” The robot lights up. “It does not. It is merely what analysis shows. What makes this one the leader is the fact that this one is the one that wants to stay in the Contiiiiinuum the most because of the freedom being here gives him.”

Benny’s eyes widen. He shakes his head. “N-No, that’s not true. I want to— I want to go  _ home, _ like these two do. Rex is the one that wants to stay here—”

“Yeah!” Rex says. “I brought them here because  _ I _ didn’t want to leave! This nerd beat me up for trying to get him to stay!”

The robot stares. “I shall reconfigure my sensors to take into account this new information.”

“Wait, no, no,” Lucy sighs. “I have some questions.”

The robot brightens again. “I am equipped to answer many questions. What would you like to know?”

“What were those monsters?” Lucy asks. “Why were they attacking us?”

“Those monsters seek out those who are exhibiting negative emotion,” the robot says. “They do not always exist if the leadiiiiiing party is utilizing the Continuum’s gifted powers to make the world as desired.”

Rex frowns. “So... Benny has to make this world how he wants it to make those monsters stop attacking us? Because there sure as hell is too many negative emotions between the four of us...”

“That is correct,” the robot chimes.

Lucy frowns. “So... Is that why Inventia can be whatever we want it to be? Because one of us can morph it how we want?”

“With the exception of Mega City and the capital of Struxburg.”

“Where’s Struxburg?” Emmet asks.

The robot prints out a map from its central cavity and hands it to Emmet. “Here is a map of currently existing worlds on Inventia.”

Emmet looks over the map and then holds it out for Lucy and Benny to look as well.

“Huh,” Lucy squints. “Is that the crater you and Rex made?”

“I guess?” Benny says. “So if Mega City is here, and Struxburg is  _ here... _ Then if we go north by northwest, we’ll get to Struxburg. That is,  _ if _ we want to go there...”

“Struxburg is a delightful city,” the robot chimes. “The people there will show you how good it is to live on Inventia with the Continuum.”

“Aaaand that brings me to my  _ next _ question,” Lucy says. “What’s the Continuum?”

The robot beeps harshly, and the four of them flinch. “I am not equipped to answer that question.”

Lucy frowns. “Then, how do we get home?”

The robot flares red. “You. Do.  **Not.”**

Rex hums. “Okay. I can tell I may have made a mistake not leaving when I had the chance.”

“Right?” Benny scoffs.

Emmet glances at the others and then at the robot. “So... If we go to Struxburg... Will they be able to tell us more about this Continuum?”

The robot returns back to its friendly blue. “It will let you meet other esteemed guests of the Continuum who will show you the benefits of staying.”

Benny frowns. “But if we go outside, we’ll be attacked by monsters...”

The robot beeps, more gently this time. “You will be safe if you take the train. It will be a direct route to Struxburg and you wiiiiiill not have to worry about monsters.”

“We’re not going there,” Rex says.

“We’re going there,” Benny says.

“What?” Lucy asks. “Ben, no, I agree with Rex here.”

Benny shrugs. “Well, we’re not getting answers from  _ this guy.” _ He motions to the robot. “But if there’s other ‘esteemed guests’,” he says with air quotes, “then maybe there’s more people like  _ us _ out there... The— The others that have been lost to the Dryar system over the years. Maybe one of  _ them _ can tell us something we need to know to get out of here.”

_ “Or,” _ Rex says. “Counterpoint. They do something that convinces us to stay and we get  _ stuck here _ with whatever this Continuum wants us here for.”

Benny sighs. “Come on, trust me, I know what I’m doing...”

Emmet rubs the back of his neck. “I mean... You  _ did... _ get us stuck here in the first place...”

Benny’s look darkens and Emmet winces. “You don’t need to come with me,” Benny says. “I can go on my own. We already established you know nothing about me, so what reason do you have to trust me that I’m  _ not _ going to stay here?”

Lucy sighs. “No, Ben, Emmet doesn’t mean it like that. We stuck with you this long, and we’re going to stick with you now.”

Emmet nods. “Yeah! I— I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry.”

Rex frowns. “He  _ does _ have a point though, Spaceman. Do you really know what you’re doing, or are you just winging it...?”

Benny glares. “Do  _ you _ know what to do?”

“...Well—”

“Of course I’m winging it,” Benny sighs. “What other choice do I have?”

Rex furrows his brow and then looks at the robot. “How do we get to that train...?”

The robot bobs its head back and forth again. “I will be glad to show you to the train. Please, follow me.”


	5. Chapter 5

The moonscape fades away into grassy countryside again as Rex stares out the window of the train, only half an hour into what’s sure to be a ridiculously long trip. He looks over and finds Emmet snoring with his head back against his seat, sure to give him a neck ache by the time he wakes up, and Lucy sleeping with her head in his lap. The two of them by now have changed out of their spacesuits into their normal clothes, one of the perks of this world, it seems.

Rex keeps his spacesuit on, of course. Doesn’t hurt to be prepared when Benny inevitably gets them all stuck here and decides to make a world designed entirely around space and spaceships...

Speaking of Benny... Rex looks over to find Benny still at work dismantling his gun, counting the pieces, and putting it back together in some new configuration. This is only the twentieth time he’s done this, and it’s gotten no less annoying than the fifth time of indecision.

“Hey, Spaceman,” Rex says.

Benny doesn’t respond.

Rex frowns. “Look, I know you’re mad at me, but that’s no reason to ignore me...”

Benny merely continues his work.

Rex sighs and stands up, grabbing onto the crutches he imagined for himself, and he hops over to Benny’s table to sit across from him. “Ben, what— Oh... Huh...”

Now that he can see Benny’s face, he sees that Benny isn’t focusing on anything, lost in some sort of thought and just repeating motions on autopilot. It’s... weird, in an endearing sort of way, and Rex finds himself watching and waiting to see when Benny will snap out of it.

The train car jostles, Rex’s crutches topple over before he can catch them, and they fall with a clatter. Benny jumps, and his finger catches on the trigger of his newly constructed laser gun, and Rex yelps as he dodges out of the way. He looks up at the hole in his seat where the laser cut through, and he cautiously sits up again and peers through the hole to see how many train cars it cut through.

“Dang,” Rex hums. “That’s got some oomph, huh?”

“Ah, darnit...” Benny hastily takes out the laser clip and puts the safety back on the gun before putting both things away. “I’m  _ so _ sorry, dude, I should have been more careful—”

“Woah, woah, relax,” Rex chuckles. “It’s fine. You could have killed me, but it’s fine.”

Benny sighs and buries his face in his hands. “This whole thing’s got me frazzled as heck. I don’t  _ like _ being angry and mean...”

“It’s not for everyone,” Rex shrugs. “But it  _ does _ give you more  _ character, _ if you ask me.”

“I didn’t,” Benny frowns, lowering his hands.

Rex holds up his hands in peace. “Just saying...”

Benny snorts and rests his head in his palm and raps his fingers on the table. “You know, it’s really not fair...”

Rex frowns. “I mean, what in life is?”

“Oh, shut up,” Benny sighs. “I mean... Look, I’ve been around longer than you. I dealt with things similar to you, and we have a lot of similar traits and abilities now, in this world. And that  _ scares _ me. At least, back home, I don’t have to  _ think _ about any of this until playtime’s over and I’m free to be me. Because I’m too busy being that one-dimensional version of myself. But you... You actually changed things, somehow? You went back in time instead of— instead of being a second figure your Kid made to be ‘future Emmet’...? If— If I could have done something like that...”

Rex shakes his head. “I mean... Yeah, I’m awesome and did some really cool things, but part of it still relied on what the Kid wanted to do... But as soon as I got my ship to the past, all I had to do was nudge things along to make things happen...” He crosses his arms behind his head and leans back. “I mean, being perfectly honest, the only thing I wanted was to go back and save myself from the people I thought abandoned me. But that just got me stuck in Dryar again, in the end... What would you even do if you went back in time too?”

“I don’t know,” Benny says. “I don’t want to think about that.”

“Hmm.” Rex glances at Benny and then lowers his arms to rest them on the table. “Alright, be real with me for a moment. After what I did, why are you letting me come along with you? If I were you, I would have left me behind by now. I wouldn’t even bother helping with my leg, but you...”

Benny frowns. “I told you. It’s much more mature to be nice...”

“You’re not being  _ nice, _ though.” Rex frowns. “Sure, you’re putting up with me and helping me, but you’re being kinda a ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ about it.”

Benny smiles despite himself. “You figured out what I called you earlier, huh?”

“What?” Rex balks.  _ “Dude, _ you called me a  _ duckweed? _ That’s not even space themed!”

Benny laughs. “Why’d  _ you _ say it then?”

“Because— Just because!”

Benny chuckles a few more times before it fades and the two of them are left in the silence of the train rolling along the tracks and Emmet snoring. Benny frowns again and shrugs. “I mean,” he says. “You were a jerk first. I shouldn’t have to forgive you for trying to manipulate me and kill me. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be awful and leave you to die here too. Because— Because I care about my friends and... you used to be my friend. Right?”

Rex hesitates. “That was... a different me. I don’t think I can count as the friend you knew...”

“I mean, time travel shenanigans wise?” Benny shrugs. “You were. But you aren’t now, clearly. We’re going to get out of this, together, but then I don’t plan to ever talk to you again. At least, not of my own free will. If the  _ Kids _ say differently...”

“You know...” Rex frowns. “If you  _ do _ want to stay... I wouldn’t blame you. I’d be pissed, but... I’d understand, at least. Here, you can actually be exactly what you want to be. Have everything you want to have... Why would any of us want to leave?”

“Because...” Benny frowns. “Dude, don’t try to convince me to stay. We’re trying to find a way  _ out...” _

“I’m just saying,” Rex shrugs. “I hope you actually have a reason you want to leave...”

“...Because,” Benny says. “Even if those Kids don’t know me like  _ my _ Kids knew me... I like that I still have a story to be told... I just want to have a bit more control over my place in the story, a bit more meaning to me being there. But I don’t want to control  _ everything _ about my life. That’d be too predictable. Being here is... it’d be too  _ much _ freedom. Being out there...” He smiles sheepishly. “Maybe I’m being stupid, but I’m holding onto the hope that my Kids will come back and tell my story  _ right _ some day... But... That doesn’t matter because, regardless, this isn’t for me...” He looks back at Emmet and Lucy. “This is for  _ them. _ Those two need to make it back home and I’m not going to let them stay stranded here because I convinced them to go with me on a suicide mission.” He frowns at Rex. “Because it’s my fault they’re here. They wouldn’t have fallen for your trap if I didn’t take them there.”

Rex stares, a feeling of... something... in his chest. Something confusing that might be... awe? Or maybe astonishment? Or maybe— Oh,  _ heck no, _ it can’t be... It can’t be  _ that. _ He quashes down the feeling and laughs derisively. “Yeah,” he smirks. “You really hecked up doing that, huh, Spaceman? I would have been happy in my castle and the three of you would have been safe at home if you hadn’t done something so stupid. And— And selfish. Stupid and selfish.”

Benny scowls. “Okay, that’s it.” He points at the seat Rex was in before. “You don’t get to talk to me for the rest of the trip. Just shut  _ up _ and stay away from me until we get to Struxburg.”

“F—  _ Fine.” _ Rex leans over to grab his crutches, and he hobbles back over to his seat. “Not like I want to talk to a depressed nerd like you anyway.”

Benny glares. “Not like  _ I _ want to talk to someone who imagined crutches for his hurt leg instead of imagining his leg  _ healed.” _

Rex blinks and looks down at his leg. “Oh. Yeah, that would— Huh.” He looks up again, but Benny already is looking away and ignoring him. He scowls and leans back in his seat, his arms crossed over his chest.

He doesn’t even notice that Emmet’s stopped snoring or that Lucy has an eye open watching him.

The train continues on, and eventually Benny falls asleep at the table while Rex lies down on his seat and sleeps as well. Lucy gets up and pokes Emmet who blinks his eyes open and looks at the other two.

“Oh, good,” he whispers. “Those two need some sleep. Maybe they’ll be less cranky...”

“Cranky’s not the problem,” Lucy whispers back. She pulls Emmet to his feet. “Come on. Let’s get to the next car over and talk there.”

Emmet nods and follows her. They step quietly as possible into the next car and shut the door behind them. Emmet rubs the back of his neck and cringes.

“Ow...” he groans. “I shouldn’t have slept like that...”

“You’ll be okay?” Lucy asks.

“Yeah...” Emmet continues to rub his neck. “It’ll go away, I’m sure... So, uh... You notice anything...  _ weird _ about...  _ Rex _ , or is that just me?”

“You mean Rex obviously having a crush on Benny?” Lucy asks.

“Oh, is  _ that _ what it is?” Emmet asks. “I thought he was jealous or something!”

“It  _ has _ to be a crush,” Lucy says. “He keeps staring at him when he thinks we aren’t looking and he keeps blushing whenever Benny gets close to him.”

“Really?” Emmet glances through the window of the door, trying to see the two of them. “Then... Why is he being so  _ mean _ to him...? Ben’s not gonna like that.”

“I don’t know,” Lucy frowns. “It’s completely different from how  _ you _ acted when you had a crush on me. But like I said, Rex isn’t  _ you. _ Not anymore...”

Emmet hums and then snaps his fingers. “Ohhh, I get it. Rex is  _ embarrassed.” _

Lucy snorts. “Really, now?”

“Yeah!” Emmet nods. “Because— Because he treated us badly and  _ then _ got a crush on Benny, so now he’s embarrassed to admit he likes him, so he’s treating him badly so Benny won’t notice. Because that seems like the kind of thing he’d do.”

“Rex really is an idiot,” Lucy sighs. She pauses and smiles nervously. “No offense, Emmet...”

Emmet sighs and shrugs. “You know, at this point, I probably deserve that. I can’t help but feel this is partly my fault... If I got to know Benny better before all this...”

“I don’t know if that would have changed things much,” Lucy says. “And it doesn’t matter now. We need to get home, first thing. But Rex being mean to Benny to hide the fact he likes him is going to be so  _ annoying, _ especially if it keeps us from doing what we need to...”

“What do we do?” Emmet asks. “I think at this point, Benny would get upset to know Rex has a crush on him...”

Lucy furrows her brow in thought and then smiles wickedly. “I have an idea... Let’s tease the  _ heck _ out of Rex about his crush.”

Emmet laughs. “No, we can’t do—” He stops and looks over her face. “Oh, you’re serious? We’re going to tease him about it...?”

“If it’s going to annoy the rest of us, we might as well annoy him back,” Lucy says.

“I don’t know...” Emmet frowns. “I— I feel like that has a chance to backfire...”

“Well, what else can we do about it?” Lucy asks.

“I don’t know, but... something that isn’t that?”

“Emmet...”

“I— I mean, it just... seems kinda mean...?”

“We don’t have to  _ bully _ him. Just... friendly banter between frenemies.”

“Well, if that’s all it is...”

“Oh, oh!” Lucy looks through the window. “I think Rex is waking up. Follow my lead.”

“Okay...” Emmet glances nervously at Rex, but he follows Lucy back into the other car just as Rex is sitting up and looking out the window to see how much further they have to go. Lucy sits on one side of Rex, and so Emmet sides on the opposite side.

Rex blinks and looks from one to the other and frowns.  _ “What?” _ he demands.

_ “So,” _ Lucy smirks. “You’ve got a thing for space nerds?”

Rex squints. “What are you talking about?”

“We’ve been seeing how you look at Ben,” she says, nodding towards Benny. “You’ve got a crush on him, don’t you, Rex?”

“You’re out of your mind,” Rex scoffs. “Why would I have a crush on  _ him?” _

“I mean, he  _ is _ cute,” Emmet says. He blinks when the other two stare at him. “Wh- What? He is! And Rex is me, so he’d think so too, right? R- Right?”

Rex frowns. “Nah. Doesn’t do it for me.”

“Then why did you get all Heart Eyes when he was carrying you earlier?” Lucy asks.

“You’re delusional.”

“You got all blushy when he was talking to you to the point you didn’t hear what he said.”

“I was in pain. That was a manly, pained blush.”

“You were smiling at him for no reason when we were going into Mega City.”

“I was thinking of an unrelated thing.”

Lucy lifts her brow. “Yeah? What was it?”

Rex rolls his eyes. “I was thinking about  _ cool _ people like... Han Solo or... Captain Kirk...”

“Aren’t those  _ space _ guys?” Emmet asks.

Rex huffs up. “So what? Doesn’t mean I’m in love with Benny or anything.”

“Woah, wait,” Lucy says. “You’re in  _ love _ with him? I thought you only had a  _ crush.” _

“No, I’m not in  _ love _ with him,” Rex hisses. “That’s the opposite of what I am! I’m— I’m in  _ hate _ with him. I hate that jerk. And you can’t prove otherwise.”

“Dude,” Emmet says, placing a hand on Rex’s shoulder. “You’ve got a  _ lot _ of issues to work out. Just— Just saying...”

Rex scowls and slaps Emmet’s hand away. “I’d have  _ less _ if I wasn’t abandoned in the first place. So... Shut up. You never went through what I did. You don’t know what it’s like...”

Lucy shakes her head. She looks up at a voice over the intercom announcing “Now arriving in Struxburg.”

“Well,” Lucy says, standing. “We’re here. Time to see what we can find here...” She walks over to Benny and gently shakes his shoulder. “Ben, wake up. We’re here.”

“Huwha?” Benny asks, jolting up. He grimaces and takes off his helmet to wipe the drool from his face. “Ugh— Gross. What’s going on?”

“We’re in Struxburg,” Lucy repeats.

“Oh, already...?” Benny gets up and stretches. “Alright, let’s get moving. The sooner we get home, the better.”

The train pulls into the station, and the four of them exit, surrounded by new people in an unfamiliar city.

“Welcome to Struxburg,” the train station monitors recite as images of the city passes across them. “Our city is a world free to be creative and exist in peace, where monsters cannot enter no matter how negative your thoughts may be. But there’s no need for negativity in Struxburg. Here, you are free to be yourself.”

The four of them leave the station and head onto the city streets, looking around with varying degrees of wonder at the skyscrapers in the distance and the busy city traffic.

“It’s like Bricksburg,” Emmet says, eyes wide. “Except... Not... Bricks...”

“It’s like a Their World city,” Rex says. “Weird...”

“This is what Bricksburg used to look like?” Benny asks. “It’s...” He pulls away when some of the Struxburg citizens push past him. “It’s crowded.”

“Bricksburg was  _ mega _ controlled by Business,” Lucy says. “It was definitely a lot more, uh...  _ orderly _ than this.”

Rex frowns and looks up and down the street. “It still feels... really eerie. Like something’s wrong here...”

“Yeah,” Benny agrees. “I wonder who we need to talk to about the Continuum...”

A few heads turn their way, and a couple of them pull out phones to call someone. Lucy frowns, and shoves Emmet and Benny along.

“Hey, I think we should keep moving,” she whispers. “Especially you and Rex, Benny. You’re not exactly dressed for city life.”

Rex glances at the stares and shuffles along with them. “Yeah, let’s get going.”

“Right,” Benny agrees, and the four of them continue down the street.

As they go, the city seems to turn bigger, the buildings taller, and more people take notice of the small group. A black and white car pulls up alongside them, and a rather generic looking police officer pokes their head out at them. “You folks come from the train from Mega City?”

Emmet looks to Lucy, Lucy looks to Benny, Benny smiles nervously.

“Oh, did our spacesuits give it away?” he jokes.

The police officer frowns. “You said something about the Continuum...? Are you some ‘esteemed guests’?” the officer says in air quotes.

Rex frowns. “That’s what that stupid robot called us.”

“Right, join the club,” the officer sighs. “We meet Tuesdays from 6 to 8 at the Community Center.”

Lucy frowns.  _ “Funny—” _

“No joke,” the officer says. They turn and riffle around for something and then hold out a flyer. “Mega City’s got some...  _ interesting _ views on the Continuum that we here in Struxburg don’t quite see eye to robotic eye on. Today’s Tuesday, so maybe we’ll see you folks there. Could always use some new thoughts on how to handle this problem.”

Emmet takes the flyer and reads it over. “Tonight at 6, huh...?”

“If you need help finding the community center, look for the building with the rainbow flag out front.” They glance at Benny and frown. “Hey, son, you look familiar.”

Benny frowns and points at Emmet. “I look like him but without any hair.”

“Yeah.” The officer hums. “But, nah, the guy I’m thinking of got lost in the 80s. Your suit’s too new for that.” The officer gives them a small salute. “Stay out of trouble, now.” 

“What?” Benny asks, but the officer drives off without another word. Benny stares after the car as it disappears into traffic down the street.

“Ben...?” Emmet asks. “Did you know that guy...?”

Benny cracks a smile and laughs. “I— I don’t. I don’t remember!” He continues laughing a few more seconds before he goes completely silent when Lucy puts a hand on his arm. Benny sighs and wipes a tear from his eye. “I’m messed up. Let’s just keep looking around. We can stop by that meeting later if we don’t get any other leads.”

“Well, where are we going to go?” Rex asks. “This is a new city we know nothing about. This entire plan of yours seems stupid so far.”

Benny scowls. “You know what, Rex? You don’t need to keep sticking around. If you’re going to be an asteroid like this, then just  _ leave.” _

Rex’s eyes flare and he stands taller, trying to emphasize his height. “Maybe I will. I can figure out this mystery on my own. I can get out of here even if the rest of you get stuck, so don’t come crawling to me when you end up trapped here and I make it back to your friends instead of you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Benny growls.

“Fine,” Rex says.

_ “Fine.” _ Benny turns away and heads down the street.

_ “FINE.” _ Rex yells after him. “WHO EVEN NEEDS YOU.” He scowls and crosses his arms. “I never needed any of you...”

Emmet frowns. “You know, Rex... I— I may be kind and naive and foolish... but as much as I want to help you...? I— I can tell you’re too much of a  _ jerk _ to want it.”

Rex’s eyes widen and drops his arms to his side.  _ “Excuse me...?” _

“So,” Emmet says. “Benny’s right. You should go, if you’re going to keep being mean like this. I’m tired of trying to forgive you when you keep being so  _ awful.” _

“Emmet,” Rex starts.

“He’s  _ right, _ Rex,” Lucy says. “You keep blaming us for you being the way you are, but it’s not any of  _ our _ fault. The two of us are sticking with Benny here. Don’t come back until you’re ready to play nice.”

“Lucy,” Rex utters.

“Let’s go, Emmet,” Lucy says, and the two of them hurry off after Benny, leaving Rex behind.

Rex stares as they leave. His chest tightens, he grips his fists. They’re abandoning him again. They’re leaving him behind. They don’t care about him. They don’t want him. They...

Have no reason to...

He hesitates and scowls and storms off his own way. He’ll figure this out, with or without them.

Meanwhile, Benny stops at a street corner and looks back when he hears someone calling his name. He waits for Emmet and Lucy to make it up to him, and he smiles shakily.

“Sorry about all this,” he says. “I know it’s my fault that... All this... and— and  _ him.” _

“You’re not to blame for Rex,” Lucy reminds.

“No, but...” Benny sighs. “I feel like I should be more understanding, you know? We both went through basically the same thing. The only reason I didn’t turn out like him before was because I never could escape the story to defy all logic like he did and ended up getting my personality molded by your Kids. But— But here, now? I feel like I  _ am _ like him.”

“Benny,” Emmet winces. “You—”

“Don’t try to tell me I’m not,” Benny says. “I’ve been snapping at all of you all day or— or however long it’s been. I really just want to go home and forget all about this and go back to pretending I never knew anything about Their World. Go back to being the hyperactive spaceman who cares only about spaceships and nothing else.”

“That’s not  _ you, _ though,” Lucy says.

Benny sighs. “I don’t know that anymore...”

“It’s  _ not,” _ Lucy insists. “Maybe being here isn’t the best, but we got to learn more about you now.” She puts her hands on her hips. “And who says Rex is the only one who gets to defy logic and change things? Once we get back to the others, the three of us can team up and get the Kids to give you a better story. Maybe get them to give  _ everyone _ a better story. We’re people. We’re  _ real. _ No matter how much plastic we’re made of.”

Benny stares for a moment and then shakes his head. “I... I think I need help. My helmet’s not the only thing that’s cracked. Maybe I’ve been overthinking things.” He waves his hands, trying to ground himself at least mentally if not physically. “What good is any of this?” he asks. “Being all—” He holds his hands against his chest. “—all  _ sad _ and  _ angry _ all the time? It’s not getting anything done.”

Meanwhile, Rex wanders aimlessly, a scowl on his face that parts the crowd trying to avoid what’s clearly an angry jerk—that’s right, he  _ is _ a jerk, he thinks to himself. That’s... what he’s been trying to tell himself the entire time, but... it’s not helping anyone is it...?

“This is a nightmare,” Rex mumbles to himself, stopping to slouch against a random wall and talk himself through to a solution. “Everything about this... This has never been what I wanted...” His mind starts to trail to what he  _ did _ want, so long ago... “I just.... Wanted to save my friends...”

Rex flinches at the memory of being trapped in Undar for so long... Like he is now... This is a nightmare....

Suffering a broken helmet is a nightmare. Being stuck under a dryer is a nightmare. All of it, and he just wants to wake up from this, but he  _ is _ awake, and every moment is a hellscape of his own actions pushing the others away because of  _ what? _ Being afraid he’ll lose them again?

Fat lot of good that’s done him, Rex decides as he imagines himself back into his normal outfit. After everything he’s done, all he’s suffered and tried to make others suffer for things he  _ knows _ they couldn’t even control. He scowls and shouts out. “I’ve  _ had _ it! What good is any of this? I’m done being stuck in my own nightmare!” He storms back down the way he came. “I can’t keep making these same mistakes...”

Benny takes a breath and slowly lets it out. “Okay,” he says, determined and steady. “Things could be worse. We’re not going to let them get worse. From now on, we’re going to be calm, and happy, and stable. I’m not going to be angry or snap at any of you, and we’re going to get out of this and go home.”

“That’s the spirit!” Emmet grins. “What do you want to do about Rex, though?”

“Rex?” Benny repeats.

Elsewhere, Rex walks slowly, deliberately, parsing through a list of apologies in his head. He never realized how much his own guilt had been hiding under his fear or how much his fear had been hiding under the anger of being abandoned so many times... But in the end, they were right. It’s not their fault he got stuck, but it’s  _ his _ fault he decided to be so horrible to them. He needs to play nice, and maybe get yet another second chance...

He doesn’t know why he wants a second chance, but...

No, that’s a lie... The space nerd... really is something. Something he never saw before and doesn’t know if he has a shot at now.

“What are you going to do about Rex, though?”

“Rex?”

Rex looks up, and his breath catches in his throat.

“We don’t need him. He already decided he doesn’t need us.”

Rex’s face feels wet all of a sudden—something must have gotten in his eyes. He turns and marches away without letting them know he’s there.

Why would he even hope to have a chance?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're caught up to everything I have written so far! I don't know if/when I'll pick up working on this story again, but here's hoping I'll have more updates eventually. Either way, I hope you enjoyed what I was able to make of the fic thus far. Thank you for reading!


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